Ui  LtBRAar 
SF  M 

UMVEBSITir  OF  lUINOiS 

CHKIST, 


AND  THE 


UNITY  OF  THE  FACE. 


BACCALAUREATE  SERMONS 

V 

DELIVERED  AT 

MIDDLEBUKY  COLLEGE, 

v 

BY 

OALYIN  B.  HULBERT,  D.  D., 

President. 


■ 

“C  NEW  YORK: 

COLLINS  &  BROTHER,  STATIONERS,  414  BROADWAY. 
1879. 


CHKIST, 


II 


y  OF  TEl  OOCTEI 


AND  THE 


UNITY  OF  THE  RACE. 


BACCALAUREATE  SERMONS 

DELIVERED  AT 

MIDDLEBURY  COLLEGE, 


CALVIN  B.  HULBERT,  D.  D., 

President. 


NEW  YORK: 

COLLINS  &  BROTHER,  STATIONERS,  414  BROADWAY. 
1879. 


2  3"/.  3 

H  ^ 


TO 


Mr.  L.  M.  bates, 

m:w  YORK  CITY, 


THROUGH  WHOSE  LIBERALITY  THEY  ARE  GIVEN  TO  THE  PUBLIC, 
THESE  DISCOURSES  ARE  RESPECTFULLY  INSCRIBED 
BY  HIS  GRATEFUL  FRIEND, 


C.  B.  HULBERT. 


Middlebury  College,  Vt., 

February  22,  1S79. 


CHRIST, 

THE  HAHMONY  OF  THE  DOCTHINES. 


SERMON 

Delivered  June  24,  1877, 


“  Who  is  he  that  condemneth  ?  It  is  Christ  that  died,  yea  rather,  that  is  risen 
again.” — Eom.  viii.  34. 

“  Seeing,  then,  that  we  have  such  hope,  we  use  great  plainness  of  speech.” — II,  Cor. 
hi.  12. 

Let  it  be  supposed  that  on  a  certain  Sabbath  morning  I  repair, 
in  company  with  others,  to  the  sanctuary,  and  there,  in  the  order  of 
the  service,  listen  to  a  sermon  on  the  subject  of  Sin:  its  Nature, 
Extent  and  Guilt.  The  preacher  speaks  in  a  tone  of  great  solemnity, 
as  if  borne  down  with  a  sense  of  the  intrinsic  seriousness  of  the  theme 
which  he  has  in  hand  and  the  magnitude  of  the  issues  which  are 
involved.  His  positions  are  taken  with  care,  are  clearly  presented, 
and  abundantly  sustained  by  appeal  to  Biblical  authority. 

Relieving  his  subject  of  mere  abstractions,  he  presents  it  as  far 
as  possible  in  the  concrete  and  in  a  pungent  application  of  it  to  his 
audience.  In  doing  this,  let  it  be  supposed  that  he  seems  to  single 
me  out  from  all  his  other  hearers,  and  to  have  in  all  he  says  a  very 
distinct  reference  to  my  misdeeds  and  sins.  He  awakens  in  me  the 
conviction  that  I  am  a  sinner  ;  by  nature  and  by  practice  a  sinner  ; 
and  a  sinner  of  aggravated,  criminal  guilt.  The  question  now  arises, 
What  shall  be  my  attitude  of  mind  toward  the  doctrine  presented? 
What  shall  my  conscience  say  in  response  to  the  preacher’s  appeals? 
and  what  shall  be  my  feelings  toward  the  preacher  himself?  Shall 
bow  in  penitential  grief  and  give  utterance  to  my  sense  of  guilt  in 


8 


the  spirit  of  the  Fifty-first  Psalm?  or  shall  I  manifest  displeasure  and 
indignantly  repel  the  doctrine  unfolded,  and  affirm  that,  so  far  as  I 
am  concerned,  it  is  altogether  misapplied? 

Not  so.  Neither  of  these  last  attitudes  will  I  assume.  I  am  not 
altogether  uninstracted  by  my  own  convictions.  1  am  conscious  of 
an  arrangement  made  in  my  moral  constitution  for  just  this  form  of 
truth.  I  will,  therefore,  take  leave  of  the  sanctuary  with  this  intent, 
to  return  and  hear  further.  It  is  possible  that  the  preacher  has 
another  sermon  to  preach  ;  and  though  upon  a  logically  related,  yet 
upon  a  different  theme.  I  will  hold  my  judgment  in  suspense  till  I 
have  heard  him  in  a  second  discourse. 

Suppose  that  on  the  succeeding  Sabbath  I  carry  out  my  purpose 
and  attend  public  worship  in  the  same  sanctuary,  and  on  this  occa¬ 
sion  listen  to  a  sermon  by  the  same  preacher.  His  subject  is  Moral 
Lidbility.  He  shows  with  great  clearness  and  with  abundant  proof 
from  Scripture  that  the  sinner,  in  his  apostasy,  has  no  power  of 
self-recovery;  no  reserved  and  latent  forces  within  him,  which, 
energizing,  can  enable  him  to  deliver  himself  from  his  state  of  guilt 
and  restore  him  to  his  normal  integrity  and  purity.  The  preacher 
affirms  the  existence  in  nature  of  a  known  law  whereby  living  things 
develop  themselves  spontaneously  according  to  a  principle  inlaid  in 
their  constitutions,  while  no  law  is  known  to  exist  whereby  one 
nature  can  contravene  itself  and  develop  its  opposite  without  the 
intervention  of  a  creative  act  of  God.  The  analogy  holds,  he  says, 
in  regard  to  the  sinner.  He  can  develop,  without  help,  the  law  of 
sin  and  death  within  him  ;  but  he  cannot  go  back  of  that  law  and 
insert  a  new  base  and  evolve  a  nature  therefrom  at  variance  with 
it.  In  illustration  of  the  sinner’s  state,  the  preacher  points  to  a  tree, 
dead  and  in  the  process  of  decay,  and  says,  that  as  that  tree  has  no 
recuperative  power  whereby  it  can  restore  its  life,  re-invest  itself  in  a 
fresh  bark  and  stand  forth  again  crowmed  in  the  glory  of  its  summer 
foliage,  so  the  sinner,  dead  in  trespasses  and  sins,  has  no  self-restor¬ 
ing  power.  If  saved,  he  must  be  saved  by  a  power  that  regenerates 
in  distinction  from  one  that  merely  expands  ;  a  power  that  grounds 
his  life  in  a  new  spiritual  base,  rather  than  develops  it  from  an  illegiti- 


9 


mate  and  false  one,  violently  inlaid  in  liis  apostate  nature  by  liis  own 
free  act. 

He  insists  that 

“  The  transformation  of  apostate  man 
From  fool  to  wise,  from  earthly  to  divine, 

Is  work  for  Him  that  made  him.” 

Such  now  is  the  preacher’s  position  in  his  doctrine,  and  a  position 
which  he  maintains  with  an  obviously  intense  conviction  of  its  truth. 
As  on  the  previous  Sabbath  when  I  listened  to  him,  so  on  this,  he 
advances  beyond  the  mere  development  of  his  subject  to  make  a 
most  earnest  and  solemn  application  of  it  to  his  hearers,  among 
whom  I  seem  again  to  be  singled  out  and  specially  addressed.  The 
preacher  seems  intent  upon  driving  me  to  the  conviction  that  1  am 
not  only  a  sinner,  and  wholly  a  sinner,  and  a  guilty  sinner,  but  that, 
being  such,  I  am  disabled,  morally  incapacitated,  incompetent  to 
perform  a  holy  act  in  my  own  strength.  I  had  always  acted  on  the 
maxim,  that  if  I  needed  help,  to  help  myself;  but  he  tells  me  that  I 
have  reached  an  emergency  where  this  maxim  must  be  set  aside. 
He  assures  me  that  I  must  have  help  which  is  not  self-rendered. 
He  rings  changes  upon  that  word  of  mysterious  import — lost;  and 
with  such  solemn  earnestness  as  to  give  it  an  appalling  significance. 
As  he  speaks,  I  feel  that  I  am  included  in  the  number  of  those  who 
have  passed  the  limits  of  self-recovery,  and  that  what  I  need  is  what 
may  properly  be  denominated  a  salvation  from  a  lost  condition. 

And  now  I  repeat  my  previous  inquiry  and  ask.  What  shall  I  do 
in  view  of  this  new  truth  urged  upon  my  attention  ?  Shall  I  men¬ 
tally  resist  it?  Shall  I  openly  express  my  displeasure?  Shall  I  say 
that  the  preacher  puts  the  divine  character  in  peril  by  supposing  God 
to  have  created  man  with  such  a  prerogative  of  free  will  as  to  render 
possible  a  lapse  in  such  a  lost  condition  ?  Shall  I  go  away  from  this 
preacher  irate  and  say  that  I  will  hear  him  no  more?  Nothing  of  all 
this  can  I  do.  I  am  a  rational  soul,  and  I  cannot  afford  to  repel  the 
words  of  a  man  who  makes  his  appeal  to  my  reason,  and  obviously 
grounds  his  positions  not  only  in  the  Bible,  but  in  the  nature  of 
things.  It  is  true  that  what  he  has  taught  is  encumbered  with 


10 


difficulties ;  but  if  I  should  hold  no  truths  but  those  which  are  not,  x 
should,  in  fact,  have  none  at  all,  and  be  a  man  of  mere  negations. 
Moreover,  while  my  understanding  may  have  been  not  a  little  baffled 
in  what  the  preacher  has  taught,  still  a  certain  rational  intuition 
holds  me  to  his  positions  as  absolutely  impregnable.  I  will  go  away, 
therefore,  with  this  intention — to  come  and  hear  him  again  on  the 
next  Sabbath.  I  have  heard  him  speak  on  tw’O  themes — he  may 
have  a  third. 

Imagine,  no^v,  that  upon  the  ensuing  Sabbath  I  take  my  place  in 
the  same  worshipping  assembly,  and  listen  to  another  sermon  from 
its  pastor.  The  impressions  of  the  previous  Sabbaths  are  unefifaced 
by  the  labors  of  the  week,  and  prepare  me  to  listen  with  deeper 
interest  than  ever  before.  But  conceive  of  my  surprise  as  the 
preacher  announces  his  theme  :  The  Reality  and  Power,  of  Satanic 
Agency  in  the  Earth.  The  shock  given  me  'by  this  announcement, 
however,  is  soon  abated  by  the  calm  and  earnest  manner  of  the 
speaker,  who  goes  on  to  maintain  that  what  the  Bible  teaches  con¬ 
cerning  those  spiritual  beings  who  kept  not  their  first  estate  is 
taught  in  the  interests  of  truth,  and  not,  as  some  have  strangely 
affirmed,  in  accommodation  to  our  human  w^eakness.  He  shows  that 
next  after  One  Other  Personage,  no  being  is  more  frequently  brought 
into  view  in  the  Scriptures  than  Satan ;  and  particularly  in  the  Ne\v 
Testament,  where  we  have  the  most  advanced  forms  of  inspired 
thought.  He  contends,  with  Archbishop  Whately,  that 'a  style  of 
exegesis  which  eliminates  the  person  of  such  a  fallen  spirit  from  the 
Scriptures,  by  converting  him  into  an  oriental  metaphor  or  into  a 
grammatical  idiom,  or  by  making  him  simply  an  impersonation  of 
evil,  is  a  style  of  biblical  interpretation  which  is  likely,  in  its  conceit, 
to  advance  till  it  precipitates  the  whole  body  of  the  Scriptures  into 
offensive  rubbish.  He  takes  the  ground  that  the  Bible  teaches  by 
direct  assertion  and  by  implication  that  there  exists  a  kingdom  of 
fallen  spirits  circumambient  to  the  earth  and  coming  continually  into 
immediate  and  influential  contact  with  human  minds.  He  suggests 
whether  the  hypothesis  of  the  existence  of  such  a  superhuman 


11 


agency  of  evil  is  not  required  to  account  for  the  strange  forms  of 
human  wickedness  that  abound  in  the  earth. 

Let  it  be  supposed,  as  heretofore,  that  in  dealing  with  this  sub¬ 
ject — a  subject  from  which  every  mind  instinctively  revolts — the 
preacher  does  it  in  the  style  of  solemn  earnestness  which  a  personal 
belief  enforces,  and  in  a  way  to  awaken  in  me  a  sense  of  alarm  at 
the  thought  of  my  own  exposure  to  the  wiles  of  the  Arch-Enemy. 
Ill  at  ease  when  I  came  to  church,  with  the  conviction  that  1  was  a 
sinner,  and  a  lost  sinner,  I  find  no  relief  now  in  the  added  position 
that  I  am  a  sinner  assaulted  and  enthralled  by  alien  spirits. 

At  this  advance  upon  previous  disclosures  of  truth,  the  old 
question  returns  :  How  shall  I  stand  affected  toward  this  strange 
doctrine  that  has  come  to  my  ears  ?  How  shall  I  feel  toward  the 
preacher?  Shall  I  assume  an  attitude  of  bristling  hostility?  Shall 
I  charge  him  with  an  unpardonable  loitering  behind  the  cul¬ 
ture  of  the  age?  or  shall  1  assail  him  for  vindicating  the  hideous 
dogmas  of  a  pagan  theology?  or  shall  I  pour  upon  him  the  con¬ 
tempt  due  to  the  craven  spirit  who  adheres  to  error  because  it  is  old, 
since  he  lacks  the  courage  to  accept  truth  because  it  is  new  ?  No  ; 
nothing  of  this.  I  will  retain  an  equanimity  and  candor  the  full 
match  of  the  speaker’s.  I  will  say  that  there  is  nothing  intrinsically 
unreasonable  in  the  existence  of  other  worlds  than  our  own,  and  of 
other  systems  of  moral  beings  ;  such  beings  must  be  free  moral 
agents,  and  be  endowed  with  the  possibility  to  sin  ;  this  possibility 
may  have  been  realized  when  they  kept  not  their  first  estate.  That 
God  should  permit  them  to  influence  human  minds  is  a  mystery  ;  but 
a  mystery  in  kind  with  the  permission  He  accords  to  the  seducer 
when  he  eyes  the  flower  he  would  spoil.  There  is  also  a  logical 
sequence  and  harmony  in  what  the  preacher  has  taught  in  his  three 
discourses  concerning  my  sin  and  my  inability,  and  now  in  my 
exposure  to  the  guileful  influences  of  evil  spirits.  Retaining  a  docile 
mind  and  accounting  him  as  controlled  by  the  cowardly  spirit,  who 
shuns  to  declare  or  to  receive  all  the  counsel  of  God,  I  will  retire 
from  the  sanctuary,  as  on  previous  occasions,  with  the  purpose  to 
return  again.  I  have  heard,  from  the  same  pulpit,  three  discourses 


12 


upon  three  difterent  themes.  It  may  be  that  on  the  next  Sabbath  I 
shall  hear  another  fresh  subject  discussed.  It  is  possible  that  no 
preacher,  in  three  sermons,  can  exhaust  the  system  of  biblical 
truth. 

On  the  following  Sabbath  morning,  let  it  be  supposed,  that  I 
fulfil  this  purpose  and  join  the  same  congregation.  The  pastor  is 
in  the  pulpit.  His  bearing  on  this  occasion,  as  heretofore,  is  digni¬ 
fied  and  impressive  ;  his  face  is  full  of  solemnity  and  benignity,  and 
beams  with  the  emotions  of  a  warm  heart.  His  style  of  utterance  is 
that  of  a  man  who  believes,  and  therefore  speaks,  and  who  cannot 
but  speak  forth  the  words  of  truth  and  soberness  which  he  has 
heard  ;  for  his  words  are  not  so  much  those  which  man’s  wisdom 
teacheth  as  those  which  the  Holy  Ghost  teacheth.  He  speaks 
like  a  man  commissioned  from  the  court  of  Heaven  to  deliver 
divine  messages.  He  is  utterly  unmoved  by  that  patent  cry  of 
atheistic  unbelief  which  assails  the  ears  of  modern  preachers  as  it 
did  those  of  the  ancient  prophets  :  “  Prophesy  not  unto  us  right 
things  ;  speak  unto  us  smooth  things  ;  prophesy  deceits  ;  cause  the 
Holy  One  of  Israel  to  cease  from  before  us.” 

From  previous  experiences  under  this  preacher’s  ministrations,  I 
need  not  be  surprised  to  find  that  his  words  continue  to  be  “  as 
goads  and  as  nails  fastened  by  the  masters  of  assemblies.”  Hence 
his  theme  on  this  occasion  strikes  me  as  in  logical  harmony  with  pre¬ 
ceding  ones,  when  he  proposes  to  consider  the  doctrine ‘of  Future 
Punishment, 

“Alas  !  ” — this  is  my  soliloquy — “  I  am  not  only  a  sinner,  a  sinner 
by  nature  and  by  practice  and  a  criminally  guilty  sinner ;  I  am  not 
only  a  disabled  sinner,  and,  apart  from  divine  intervention,  a  hope¬ 
lessly  lost  sinner  ;  I  am  not  only  a  beleaguered  sinner,  called  to  war 
both  against  flesh  and  blood  and  against  principalities  and  powers  ; 
but  also  and  beyond  all  this,  I  now  find  that  I  am — and  in  natural 
sequence — an  exposed  sinner,  and,  in  the  destiny  of  the  soul,  to  a 
catastrophe  whose  bounds  the  imagination  cannot  compass.”  To 
■  establish  the  truth  of  this,  the  preacher,  in  his  sermon,  advances  to 
affirm  it  on  the  authority  of  inspired  and  unambiguous  assertion,  on 


13 


the  one  hand,  and  the  nature  of  apostate  mind  on  the  other.  He 
says  that  there  are  arrangements  made,  not  only  in  the  divine  moral 
government  of  the  world,  but  in  the  nature  and  constitution  of  the 
human  soul,  whereby  sinners  dying  unrepentant  and  the  enemies  of 
God,  merit  and  will  receive  an  everlasting  overthrow.  He  reasons 
that  as  God’s  character  remains  unimpaired  in  the  presence  of  the 
fact,  patent  before  every  eye,  that  sin  and  misery  are  conjoined  in 
this  life,  so  his  character  will  need  suffer  no  loss,  but  remain  infi¬ 
nitely  amiable  in  case  sin  and  misery  are  conjoined  in  human 
experience  in  the  next.  He  insists  that  the  fact  that  God  is  love” 
is  more  easily  reconciled  with  the  continuance  of  sin,  in  impenitent 
minds,  in  eternity,  than  it  is  with  the  beginning  of  sin,  in  holy 
minds,  in  time.  Whatever  arguments  can  harmonize  the  divine 
benevolence  with  the  origin  of  evil  are  equally  valid  in  reconciling 
the  divine  benevolence  with  the  continuance  of  evil  in  apostate 
mind.  Thus  does  the  preacher  argue.  Nor  does  he  speak  with  a 
hesitating  and  faltering  confidence.  His  utterances  are  not  yea  and 
nay,  but  yea  and  amen.  He  gives  no  uncertain  sound.  He  uses 
great  plainness  of  speech.  As  God’s  ambassador  he  asserts,  on 
God’s  authority,  certain  primary  and  essential  facts,  giving  them 
unqualified  and  unmistakable  prominence.  He  asserts  ;  he  reasons 
he  announces  ;  he  proclaims  ;  knowing  the  terrors  of  the  Lord,  he 
persuades.  And  in  dealing  with  this  theme  of  appalling  interest,  let 
us  suppose  that  he  gives  it  a  practical  bearing,  and  in  a  way  to 
disturb  and  alarm  impenitent  hearers  ;  and,  being  myself  of  this 
number,  let  it  be  supposed  that  I  feel  myself  to  be  hard  pressed,  and 
not  a  little  alarmed  and  moved  by  the  urgency  of  his  appeals.  His 
“great  plainness  of  speech  ”  pricks  me  to  the  heart.  As  I  listen  to 
his  terrific  delineations  of  the  day  of  judgment  and  the  retributions 
of  eternity,  I  am  filled  with  a  “fear  that  hath  torment.” 

Here  again,  and  for  the  fourth  time,  I  am  driven  back  upon  the 
old  question:  What  shall  I  do  ?  Confronted  with  this  doctrine  of 
the  destiny  of  the  incorrigible,  what  shall  I  say  ?  As  I  hear  the 
preacher,  shall  I  brace  my  feet  in  the  slip  in  tort  and  angry  opposi¬ 
tion  to  his  words?  Shall  I  look  around  in  a  choleric  spirit  to  find 


14 


in  other  hearers  expressions  of  sympathy  with  me  in  my  enmity? 
Shall  1  wrap  about  me  the  scaly  folds  of  a  sullen  unbelief  and  bid 
defiance?  Shall  I  charge  the  preacher  with  cruel-heartedness,  and 
curl  upon  him  a  lip  of  contempt,  and  smite  him  in  the  face  and 
say  that  he  imputes  to  the  heart  of  the  Infinite  Father  the  intrinsic 
quality  of  a  fiend  ? 

Not  I.  There  is  too  much  of  reason  and  soberness  in  the  preacher; 
he  speaks  too  much  as  one  that  has  authority  from  above  ;  he  hangs 
his  utterances  too  much  upon  hooks  which  protrude  from  m}’-  own 
soul  ;  he  incorporates  too  much  of  that  law  which  is  written  in 
my  heart,  whereby  my  conscience  bears  witness  in  thoughts  that 
accuse  or  else  excuse.  I  am  too  wonderfully  and  fearfully  made, 
having  a  large  discourse  of  reason  that  looks  before  and  after  ;  and 
I  know  not  enough  of  the  psychology  of  guilt,  the  necessities  of 
finite  mind — its  possibilities  in  sin — and  what  the  nature  of  that 
death  is  in  which  sin  issues  when  it  is  finished — in  all  these  paiticu- 
lars  I  am  too  uninformed  and  short-sighted  to  take  any  stand  against 
the  preacher  and  against  his  doctrine.  It  is  true  that  in  his  dis¬ 
courses  hitherto  he  has  made  havoc  of  the  hopes  which  I  had 
entertained  of  my  good  estate  and  my  prospects  for  the  world 
to  come.  I  confess  that  he  has  hedged  up  ray  way  and  put  dark¬ 
ness  in  my  path.  A  succession  of  ponderous  truths,  logically 
related,  interlinked,  and  sombre  and  gloomy,  bar  my  advance  and 
I  cannot  gainsay  them  ;  nor  do  I  dare  oppose  the  preacher,  lest, 
haply,  I  be  found  to  fight  against  God. 

But  this  have  I  found — and  it  is  my  great  relief — this  preacher  is 
the  preacher  of  many  themes,  and  it  may  be  that  he  can  preach 
another  sermon,  and  on  another  theme  ;  and  of  this  one  thing  I  am 
confident,  that  in  all  he  may  say  hereafter,  he  can  possibly  preach 
upon  no  subjects  of  more  terrific  interest  than  those  already  pre¬ 
sented.  He  has  told  me  that  I  am  a  sinner,  and  a  guilty  sinner,  and 
I  know  that  I  am  ;  he  has  taught  me  that  I  am  a  sinner  disabled  and 
helpless  ;  and  my  consciousness  has  confirmed  all  he  has  said  ;  he  has 
assured  me  that  I  am  assailed  and  beleaguered  by  apostate  spirits  in 
malignant  pursuit  of  me,  and  upon  an  authority  that  forbids  a  ques- 


15 


tion  ;  and  he  has  reasoned  with  me  out  of  the  Scriptures  and  out  of 
the  contents  of  my  own  soul,  of  righteousness,  and.  temperance,  and 
judgment  to  come,  till  I  have  trembled  in  view  of  the  possible  issues 
of  the  law  of  sin  and  death  ivithin  me ;  and  I  do  not  believe  that  it  is 
in  the  pow^r  of  the  preacher  to  drive  me  to  a  more  fearful  extremity 
than  the  one  I  am  in,  and  where  I  am  “shut  up,”  and  where 
my  “mouth  is  stopped.”  I  will,  therefore,  withdraw  from  the  sanc¬ 
tuary,  controlled  by  the  same  purpose  as  heretofore  —  to  come 
to  listen  to  what  he  may  next  have  to  say.  I  would  that  my 
extremity  might  be  made  by  him  an  opportunity  of  speaking  of 
some  shadow  of  a  great  rock  in  a  weary  land  ;  of  some  daysman, 
some  mediator,  some  deliverer  of  captives  and  opener  of  prison 
doors  to  them  that  are  bound  ;  but  I  will  hold  myself  in  readiness 
to  receiv'e  whatever  he  shall  teach,  if  he  retains  his  spirit  of  candor 
and  style  of  tender  appeal. 

There  is  often  a  crisis  in  the  history  of  a  human  soul.  It  occurs 
whenever  eternal  realities  are  made  to  dawn  upon  the  convicted  and 
baffled  spirit.  It  is  then  that  a  conflict  of  rival  interests  puts  the 
probationer  in  great  temptation  to  heed  the  “  many  devices  in  a 
man’s  heart''  as  opposed  to  “the  counsel  of  the  Lord,  which  shall 
stand,”  and  which  speaks  with  such  tones  of  authority  in  man’s 
reason  and  conscience^  as  well  as  in  the  Scriptures.  A  series  of  such 
crises  we  have  noticed  in  the  experience  which  we  have  been  follow¬ 
ing,  and  in  each  of  which  a  happy  transition  has  been  made;  a  docile 
and  inquiring  spirit  has  been  wisely  retained. 

Let  it  be  supposed  that  with  such  a  temper  of  mind,  I  resort 
on  the  fifth  Sabbath  to  the  sanctuary  to  take  what  is  becoming 
my  accustomed  place  in  the  congregation.  As  I  approach  the  sanc¬ 
tuary  a  certain  sense  of  dread  steals  upon  me.  According  to  that 
law  of  mental  action,  whereby  we  produce  from  objects  that  which 
we  have  embodied  in  them  by  association,  the  church  edifice  itself,  to 
my  vision,  is  invested  with  almost  a  prison  gloom.  The  service 
conducted  in  it  heretofore,  in  my  experience,  has  been  simply  “  a 
ministration  of  death."  If  for  four  times  I  have  entered  it  alive,  I 
have  yet  as  many  times  withdrawn  from  it  slain.  I  have  found  in  it 


16 


nothing  but  a  knowledge  of  sin  and  other  painfully  related  truths. 
The  preacher  himself,  though  seemingly  a  warm-hearted  and  genial 
man,  has  yet  lost  something  of  his  winning  grace  and  attractiveness 
by  my  association  of  him  with  the  uninviting  and  gloomy  themes 
which  I  have  heard  him  discuss.  I  might  almost  sa^^at  times  that  ‘‘I 
hate  him,  for  he  doth  not  prophesy  good  concerning  me,  but  evil 
but  my  mouth  is  stopped  because  of  certain  “invisible  things  which 
are  clearly  seen  in  things  that  are  made,  and  because  my  own 
thoughts  the  meanwhile  accuse,  or  else  excuse  me.”  As  he  advances, 
however,  on  this  occasion  in  the  service,  there  is  something  in  his 
bearing  and  spirit  that  rebukes  my  hostility  and  wins  me  to  him.  I 
am  the  more  disarmed  and  subdued  as  he  announces  his  theme:  Let 
i(S  consider  the  fitness  of  God's  love  in  Christ  to  win  the  hearts  of  men. 
His  text  is  this  :  “  For  God  commendeth  His  love  toward  us  in  that 
while  we  were  yet  sinners,  Christ  died  for  us  ” — a  passage  which  the 
preacher  proposes  to  use  as  representative  of  a  large  number  of  pas¬ 
sages  affirming  the  same  truth.  That  there  is  this  fitness  in  God’s 
love  to  win  the  heart,  is  made  to  appear  from  the  nature  of  love  in 
general,  as  an  amiable  affection,  but  especially  from  the  character  of 
God’s  love  as  holy.  He  attaches,  also,  great  importance  to  its  exercise 
in  God  as  a  spontaneous  affection,  not  required  in  order  to  the  per¬ 
fectness  of  His  character,  nor  to  an  exhibition  of  it  to  the  comprehen¬ 
sion  of  His  intelligent  creatures,  nor  to  the  administration  of  His 
government,  but  as  being  an  uncompelled  and  free  expression  of  His 
heart.  The  great  emphasis  is  laid,  however,  on  the  intensity  of  God’s 
love  as  involving  self-denial,  and  on  the  strangeness  of  it  as  exercised 
toward  the  guilty.  As  he  speaks  of  the  Father’s  self-denial  in  the 
mystery  of  His  Son’s  incarnation,  in  His  agony  and  bloody  sweat,  in 
His  cross  and  passion,  in  His  precious  death  and  burial,  and  in  the 
unnaturalness  of  suffering  innocence,  and  especially  under  the  divine 
inflictions  ;  as  he  announces  that  Christ  tasted  death  for  every  man 
and  bore  the  iniquity  of  us  all  ;  that  He  is  the  propitiation,  not  only 
for  our  sins,  but  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world,  so  that  the  most 
needless  event  that  ever  takes  place  in  the  history  of  the  universe,  is 
the  loss  of  a  human  soul, —  as  he  speaks  of  these  things,  and  the 


n 


strangeness  of  them  as  favors  shown  to  the  guilty,  there  are  dis¬ 
closures  made  to  me  of  God’s  love — “its  breadth,  and  length,  and 
depth,  and  height’’ — of  which,  previously,  I  had  not  the  faintest  ap¬ 
prehension.  Heretofore  as  I  listened  to  his  ministrations,  I  regarded 
the  preacher  as  determined  not  to  know  anything  in  the  pulpit  save 
me,  and  me  a  sinner,  and  a  sinner  disabled  and  enthralled,  and 
exposed  to  a  miserable  destiny  ;  but  as  I  now  hear  him  speak,  he 
seems  determined  not  to  know  anything  in  the  pulpit  save  the  love 
of  God  in  “  Christ  and  Him  crucified.”  His  range  of  thought  is  so 
broad,  his  vision  is  so  clear,  his  emotion  is  so  deep  ;  he  has  taken 
such  a  hold  upon  the  Seven  Pillars  which  Wisdom  hath  hewn  out, 
he  has  caught  such  an  inspiration  from  the  Scourged  of  Pilate’s  hall  5 
he  is  so  insphered  in  the  loving  mind  of  the  Infinite  Father,  that  he 
speaks  with  more  than  the  tongues  of  men  or  of  angels.  True  to  his 
previous  style,  he  shows  that  he  is  not  controlled  by  a  speculative 
interest,  nor  by  any  of  the  motives  of  the  secular  orator.  His 
eloquence,  like  the  New  Jerusalem,  comes  down  from  God  out  of 
heaven.  It  is  that  of  a  redeemed  sinner  supernaturally  stirred  by  His 
sympathies  for  men  who  need  redemption.  Hence  the  urgency  and 
force  of  his  appeals.  He  tells  his  hearers  that  their  necessity  is  so 
great,  their  unworthiness  is  so  deep,  and  their  salvation  is  so  costly, 
that,  on  any  terms  possible  with  God,  they  should  account  salvation  a 
privilege  ;  much  more,  then,  should  they  so  account  it  when  its 
terms  are  those  which  are  prescribed — repentance  and  faith — and 
which  are  reasonable  terms,  and  just,  and  practicable  and  necessary. 
That  he  may  mount  to  the  height  of  this  great  argument  of  salvation 
found  in,  and  enforced  by,  the  love  of  God,  he  directs  my  attention 
to  the  fact,  that  the  Crucified  whom  he  preaches  is  the  Being  of 
Many  Names,  and  that  all  these  names  are  significant  names — cor¬ 
responding  opposites  to  necessities  in  the  sinner,  each  to  each. 
He  proposes  to  me.  Are  you  in  Sin  ?  But  Christ  is  the  Lamb  of  God 
that  taketh  away  your  sin.  Are  you  disabled  ?  When  you  were 
without  strength,  in  due  time  Christ  died  for  you.  Are  you  en¬ 
thralled  by  alien  spirits  ?  Christ  hath  provided  a  way  of  deliverance 
out  of  the  Kingdom  of  Satan  into  the  Kingdom  of  God’s  dear  Son. 

2 


18 


Are  you  in  darkness  ?  Christ  is  your  light.  Are  you  like  the  troubled 
sea  wlien  it  cannot  rest  ?  Christ  is  your  peace.  Are  you  a  stumbler 
on  the  dark  mountains,  or  are  you  in  a  conflict  of  rival  opinions,  or  are 
you  dead  in  trespasses  and  sins?  Christ  is  for  you  the  Way,  and 
the  Truth,  and  the  Life.  In  short,  are  you  in  peril  number  one,  or  two, 
or  three,  or  four,  and  so  on,  endlessly  ?  Let  me  assure  you  that  there 
are  for  you  in  Christ  corresponding  forms  of  deliverance,  and  nu¬ 
merically  an  exact  match  for  your  perils,  each  to  each. 

Thus  the  preacher  insists  that  there  are  no  emergencies  in  the 
sinner’s  state  that  find  not  corresponding  alleviations  in  the  super¬ 
abundant  grace  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ ;  that,  however  the  sinner 
may  be  beset  behind  and  before  ;  however  high  his  guilt  may  rise 
or  his  otfence  be  rank,  his  loss  in  hell,  though  surely  impending,  as 
he  is,  is  yet,  witli  such  a  ransom  found,  the  most  needless  of  all 
needless  things. 

Here,  once  more,  arises  the  ever-recurring  question,  as  I  listen  to 
the  ministrations  of  this  pulpit  :  What  shall  I  do  ?  What  response 
shall  I  make  to  this  strange  variation  of,  as  well  as  advance  upon, 
previous  discourses?  I  am  called  to  prompt  and  decisive  action — 
what  shall  that  action  be  ?  Good  new^s  of  great  joy  has  come  to  me. 
I  had  heard  about  myself,  my  sin  and  peril  ;  I  am  glad  to  hear  of 
God,  and  of  His  love  in  Christ.  Great  is  the  mystery  of  godliness  ; 
God  manifest  in  the  flesh,  justified  in  the  spirit,  seen  of  angels, 
preached  unto  the  Gentiles,  believed  on  in  the  world  and  received 
up  into  glory  ;  and  to  me  is  the  word  of  this  salvation  sent.  Say, 
then  ?  This  will  I  say,  that  in  view  of  this  strange  manifestation  of 
God’s  mind  toward  me,  I  am  delivered  wholly  and  forever  from  all 
temptation  to  complain  of  the  severity  of  this  preacher, 

I  was  once  disposed  to  do  it  ;  I  accounted  him  cruel  ;  I  almost 
hated  him,  and  was  on  the  point  once  of  abandoning  his  ministra¬ 
tions,  determined  that  I  would  hear  him  no  more.  But  I  now  find 
that  I  was  wise,  beyond  a  knowledge  of  my  wisdom,  in  holding  my 
judgment  in  suspense  as  I  first  listened  to  his  preaching.  The  light 
which  pours  in  upon  me  in  this  fifth  sermon  relieves  me  from  all  the 
terrors  that  had  gathered  upon  me  as  I  heard  the  first  four.  Shut 


19 


up  solely  to  the  contemplation  of  sin  and  the  disability  it  creates  ;  of 
alien  spirits  and  the  destiny  that  awaits  them  and  all  who  are  one 
with  them  in  heart,  I  am  driven  to  despair  ;  but  as  I  contemplate 
these  same  severe  and  sombre  truths  in  the  light  cast  upon 
them  in  the  ameliorating  and  cheering  doctrines  of  the  cross,  they 
lose  their  threatening  aspect ;  if  not  their  essential  nature,  they  yet 
surrender  their  sting.  The  sanctuary  in  which,  for  four  Sabbaths, 
“a  ministration  of  death was  preached,  and  which  to  me  then  was 
draped  in  gloom,  its  very  atmosphere  pulsating  with  a  funereal 
sadness,  and  which  was,  therefore,  the  very  opposite  of  the  gate  to 
Heaven,  has  been  transmuted,  by  the  preaching  of  this  fifth  sermon, 
into  a  totally  new  structure.  A  “ministration  of  life”  is  now 
proclaimed  in  it,  and  it  is  flooded  with  a  light  from  Heaven  above  the 
brightness  of  the  sun.  The  preacher,  too,  who,  in  my  associating 
him  with  uninviting  and  repulsive  doctrines,  was  fast  becoming  an 
object  of  dread,  by  a  readjustment  of  previous  sermons  upon  a  new 
base  and  around  a  new  centre,  and  with  a  new  outlook,  is  now 
a  completely  transfigured  man.  A  minister  of  consternation  once,  he 
is  now  an  ambassador  for  Christ.  His  gentleness  and  benignity, 
obscured  by  my  misapprehension  of  his  aims  in  the  pulpit,  now 
invest  him  in  their  beaming  fulness  ;  and  I  say  again  that  this 
preacher  is  the  preacher  of  many  themes,  but  of  many  themes  as 
headed  toward,  and  centring  in,  and  clustering  upon.  One  Theme. 
Thanks  be  unto  G-od,  he  is  not  always  telling  me  that  I  am  a  sinner ; 
he  does  not  confine  my  vision  to  the  fact  of  my  helplessness  ;  he 
permits  me  to  turn  my  gaze  from  the  Arch-Enemy  and  his  angels,  in 
leagued  pursuit  of  me  ;  he  does  not  hold  me  unalterably  to  a 
fearful  looking  for  of  judgment  and  fiery  indignation.  “  Glory  be 
unto  the  Father,  and  to  the  Son,  and  to  the  Holy  Ghost  ;  as  it  was 
in  the  beginning,  is  now,  and  ever  shall  be,  world  without  end,’ 
for  the  glorious  Gospel  of  the  blessed  God.  Do,  then  ?  What  shall  I 
do?  I  will  take  the  cup  of  salvation  which  is  offered  me  in  these 
provisions  of  redemption.  No  longer  ignorant  of  God’s  righteous¬ 
ness,  I  will  no  longer  go  about  to  establish  a  righteousness  of  my 
own,  but  submit  to  the  one  which  has  been  established  for  me. 


20 


I  do,  therefore,  now  rest  confidently  in  this  crimson  centre  of 
the  Christian  system.  I  do  repent  and  believe  the  Gospel.  And, 
accepting  the  truths  taught  me  from  this  source,  I  will  no  longer 
hold  my  judgment  in  suspense  in  respect  to  truths  enforced  in 
previous  discourses.  So  long  as  this  preacher  will  give  me  such 
hope  as  this  furnished  in  the  Gospel,  I  will  give  him  the  broadest 
liberty  to  use  great  plainness  of  speech.  While  he  can  offset  a 
ministration  of  death  by  this  ministration  of  life,  he  can  give 
me  no  offence  in  the  use  of  those  scriptural  terms  and  expressions, 
from  which  I  once  recoiled,  and  which  continue  to  be  so  repulsive  to 
many  hearers. 

He  has  solved  the  riddle  of  the  honey  in  the  lion’s  carcass.  He 
has  put  a  new  song  into  my  mouth,  and  in  triumph  I  inquire.  Who 
is  he  that  condemneth  ?  Not  he  who  tells  that  I  am  a  sinner, 
and  a  guilty  and  a  lost  sinner ;  not  even  though  he  push  me 
to  the  extreme  of  acknowledging  that  I  sinned  in  Adam  and  am 
physically  depraved,  for  it  is  Christ  that  died,  and  in  Him  I  am 
saved  ;  not  because  I  am  not  a  sinner  and  the  very  chief  of  sinners, 
but  because  I  am,  and  in  spite  of  my  being.  I  repeat :  Who  is  he  that 
condemneth?  Not  he  who  tells  me  that  I  am  disabled  and  utterly 
ihelpless,  not  even  if  he  drive  me  to  the  extreme  of  saying  that  my 
inability  is  natural  and  absolute;  for  it  is  Christ  that  died,  and  in 
Him  I  am  safe,  though  weak — for  I  am  not  saved  because  I  am  not 
helpless  and  dependent,  but  because  I  am,  and  in  spite  of  it.  Who, 
then,  is  he  that  condemneth  ?  Not  he  who  tells  me  of  the  devil  and 
.his  angels,  and  of  their  influence  upon  human  minds  ;  for  it  is  Christ 
that  died,  and,  dying,  conquered  man’s  great  enemy,  and  in  Him  I 
'have  an  impregnable  fortress,  and  stand  in  no  fear  ;  for  I  am  not 
saved  because  there  is  no  empire  of  evil  spirits,  but  because  there  is, 
and  in  spite  of  the  appalling  fact.  Yet  once  more  I  hurl  the 
•challenge:  Who  is  he  that  condemneth?  Not  he  who  assures  me  of 
‘the  certainty  of  future  endless  conscious  punishment,  and  in  a 
world  prepared  for  the  devil  and  his  angels,  for  it  is  Christ  that 
-died  ;  yea,  that  is  risen  again,  and  in  Him  I  am  saved  from  the 


21 


destiny  of  the  incorrigible,  and  am  secure,  not  because  there  is 
no  punishment  of  the  kind,  but  because  there  is,  and  in  spite  of  it. 

Let  it  be  supposed  now,  that,  standing  on  this  ground  of  an 
evangelical  experience,  I  visit  an  orthodox  sanctuary  on  the  Sabbath 
and  hear  a  sermon  on  Sin,  or  on  Inability,  or  on  Alien  Spirits,  or  on 
Future  Punishment,  or  on  any  related  subject.  I  take  no  offence;  I 
say  to  the  preacher:  “Preach  on;  preach  with  clearness  all  the  counsel 
of  God  on  these  themes  ;  I  am  no  longer  sensitive  to  the  severity  of 
Biblical  doctrine  ;  for  my  door  of  entrance  into  heaven  is  not  in  a 
denial,  but  in  an  acceptance  of  the  so-called  severe  doctrines  of  Reve¬ 
lation  ;  not  upon  their  overthrow  and  ruins,  but  upon  their  vindica¬ 
tion,  do  I  build  my  hope.  There  is  a  more  excellent  way  to  heaven 
than  by  battering  them  down;  a  better  foundation  laid  than  their 
demolition.  So  long  as  you  tell  me  that  it  is  Christ  that  died,  and 
give  me  such  hope  as  His  death  and  resurrection  justify,  you  may 
use  and  continue  to  use  great  plainness  of  speech.  In  all  needful  dis¬ 
cussions  of  truth  in  the  pulpit  you  may  use  the  word  “  sin”  and  its* 
synonyms;  you  may  affirm  of  man  in  his  apostasy,  that  he  is  without 
soundness,  and  that  his  moral  character  is  little  else  than  “bruises 
and  putrefying  sores;”  on  fitting  occasion,  and  in  elevated  and  solemn 
discourse,  you  need  not  recoil  from  that  outspoken  style  that  uses  the 
words  “  devil,”  and  “  Satan,”  and  the  terms  “  evil  spirits,”  “powers  of 
darkness  ;”  nor  need  you  hesitate  and  draw  back  when  you  come  to 
the  vvord  “  hell,”  or  the  terms  “  fire  and  brimstone,”  “  wailing  and 
gnashing  of  teeth,”  “  eternal  damnation,”  “  unquenchable  fire.”  Both 
the  canon  of  good  taste  and  the  canon  of  Scripture  authorize  your 
use  of  them  ;  and  I  urge  you  to  disclose  not  a  spirit  of  timid  evasion 
of  these  severe,  but  Biblical  terms;  for  to  me  they  have  lost  their  ter¬ 
rors;  not  because  they  are  found  at  length  to  be  meaningless,  but 
because  they  are  overpowered  by  the  superabounding  meaning  of 
certain  other  words  in  the  evangelical  system  which  stand  over 
against  them  in  assaulting  contrast.  So  long  as  Christ  wears  His 
significant  names  ;  so  long  as  the  words  forgiveness,  redemption, 
salvation,  eternal  life,  have  their  fulness  of  meaning,  I  feel  no  im¬ 
pulse  to  withhold  from  the  harsher  Biblical  terms  their  natural  and 


22 


obvious  significance.  Christ  came  not  to  destro}^  but  to  fulfil  the 
import  of  these  latter  terms,  by  so  giving  to  the  world  an  advance  of 
truth  upon  them  that  they  can  be  accepted  without  fear. 

I  think  I  cannot  be  misunderstood.  This  is  my  meaning  ;  let  any 
man  accept  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  for  what  it  is  worth  to  him, 
and  that  means  at  God’s  valuation  of  it,  and  he  can  find  no  possible 
occasion  to  fear  those  doctrines  of  the  evangelical  system  which  are 
commonly  so  repulsive  to  the  natural  heart.  The  offence  of  the  Cross 
is  an  offence  taken  at  those  doctrines  that  render  it  needful.  Let 
these  doctrines  be  received  without  offence,  and  the  offence  of  the 
cross  ceases.  An  accceptance  of  Him  who  felt  “  the  sting  of  death, 
which  is  sin,”  extracts  the  sting  from  the  severe  doctrines.  We  are 
told  that  when  Daniel  was  cast  into  the  den,  God  sent  His  angel  and 
shut  the  lions’  mouths.  It  is  not  otherwise  that  God  interposes  to 
save  the  sinner  when  he  repents  and  believes.  To  those  doctrines, 
that  awaken  a  fearful  looking  for  of  judgment  and  fiery  indignation, 
and  that  threaten  io  devour  the  ungodly  man,  God  sends  His  angel 
on  the  instant  that  he  believes,  and  shuts  their  mouths.  Henceforth 
these  doctrines  move  about  him,  or  lie  at  his  feet,  as  inoffensive  and 
harmless  as  the  lions  did  around  the  prophet  in  the  den;  and  God’s 
promise  is  that  they  shall  not  hurt  or  destroy  in  all  His  holy 
mountain. 

The  subject  considered  suggests,  in  closing,  a  few  points  of  great 
practical  moment : 

I.  We  see  that  prominence  must  be  given  in  the  ministrations  of 
the  pulpit  to  the  so-called  severe  doctrines  of  revelation.  These  are 
not  the  distinctive  doctrines  of  the  Bible,  but  they  must  be  earnestly 
taught,  to  create  a  demand  for  those  that  are.  The  worth  of  the 
remedy  is  measured  by  the  strength  of  the  disease.  The  arms 
of  the  Saviour  are  inviting  only  to  those  who  are  consciously  in  the 
folds  of  the  serpent.  Sin  and  its  logically  related  truths  must  be 
clearly  and  earnestly  discussed  in  the  pulpit  before  men  will  accept, 
with  the  retpiired  self-surrender  and  energy,  the  antidote  provided 
for  it.  But, 

II.  While  prominence  is  to  be  given  to  truths  fitted  to  disturb  the 


23 


guilty,  and  to  lead  them  to  fear  the  wrath  to  come,  still  they  are  to 
be  presented,  not  for  their  own  sakes,  but  as  preliminaries  to  truths 
of  a  different  type,  to  be  immediately  enforced.  It  is  not  sufficiently 
considered  that  a  great  proportion  of  the  truths  of  the  Bible  have 
an  existence  independent  of  it.  If  we  had  no  Bible,  they  would 
remain  dominant  forces  in  human  experience.  They  are  the  truths 
of  natural  religion  which  Bishop  Butler  fell  back  upon  and  employed 
with  such  power  in  his  immortal  “Analogy;”  truths  which  the  Bible 
never  teaches,  because  it  always  assumes  that  every  man  is  bound  to 
know  them  as  taught  by  the  natural  reason.  They  are  affirmed  and 
reaffirmed  everywhere  in  the  Bible,  but  are  not  taught  as  its  peculiar 
and  distinctive  truths.  They  are  the  natural  substrate  and  back¬ 
ground  on  which  the  genial  and  clement  truths  of  the  Gospel  are 
exhibited  and  enforced.  The  truths  to  which  I  listened  on  the  first 
four  Sabbaths,  as  represented  in  the  early  part  of  this  discourse,  were 
distinctively  the  truths  of  natural  religion,  and,  as  for  substance, 
might  as  well  have  been  taught  by  Plato  or  Confucius,  as  by 
the  evangelical  divine.  There  are  men  who  are  offended  at  the 
Bible,  and  who  are  seeking  to  destroy  its  credibility.  Suppose  their 
end  accomplished ;  they  are  not  delivered  from  the  truths  taught  in 
these  first  four  sermons,  truths  which  inhere  in  the  nature  of  things, 
and  which  abide  unalterably  the  same,  even  though  the  Bible 
be  shown  to  be  otherwise  untrustworthy.  The  facts  of  sin  and  moral 
inability,  of  alien  destructive  influence  and  penal  infliction,  arc 
affirmed  in  the  book  of  nature,  republished  in  the  Bible.  In  getting 
rid  of  the  Bible,  therefore,  they  retain  all  its  sombre  and  severe 
truths,  while  they  surrender  all  its  inviting  and  cheering  ones.  They 
only  do  away  with  the  fifth  sermon.  The  sanctuary  may  remain,  but, 
if  properly  used,  it  is  a  ministration  of  death.  Its  gloomy  walls 
can  echo  to  the  proclamation  of  the  stern  and  relentless  truths 
of  nature,  and  that  is  all.  “Silver  and  gold  have  I  none  ;  but  such 
as  I  have,  give  I  thee” — a  knowledge  of  sin  and  its  bondage, 
of  destructive  influence  and  impending  doom.  Its  teachings  would 
contain  so  little  of  the  Gospel  proper,  that  were  they  the  whole 
of  it,  we  should  have  absolutely  no  Gospel  at  all.  At  its  best 


24 


estate,  it  would  be  the  voice  of  one  crying  in  the  wilderness,  a 
schoolmaster  inflicting  rigorous  discipline.  It  could  never  engage  in 
a  ministration  of  life.  It  could  never  bring  balm  from  Gilead,  or  tell 
of  any  physician  there.  It  could  only  urge  the  bitten  Israelite  to 
inspect  his  inflamed  wound,  the  leper  to  mark  the  progress  of  decay 
in  his  infected  limb — that  is  all.  Therefore, 

III.*  Our  subject  suggests  a  matter  of  critical  interest  to  the 
pulpit  in  observing  the  .importance  of  preserving  symmetry  of  doc¬ 
trine  in  preaching.  The  preacher  is  rightly  to  divide  the  Word,  not 
only  by  giving  to  his  hearers  a  portion  of  meat  in  due  season,  but 
also  by  calling  their  attention  to  the  twofold  origin  of  the  Word  he 
preaches,  as  coming  from  both  natural  and  supernatural  utterances 
in  the  Bible.  He  is  to  mark  the  fact  that  all  the  truths  of  natural 
religion  not  only  reappear  in  the  Bible,  but  are  there  so  presented 
and  emphasized  as  to  be  lifted  to  a  lofty  dignity  and  importance  ; 
meanwhile  he  is  to  notice  that  over  against  these,  and  as  contradis¬ 
tinguished  from  them,  tower,  yet  higher  and  more  conspicuously,  the 
supernatural  truths  of  the  Christian  system — the  Gospel  proper,  the 
glad  tidings — and  that  these  are  to  be  the  staple  of  his  preaching. 
These  he  is  to  proclaim  with  such  an  intense  appreciation  of  their 
worth,  and  with  such  consuming  zeal,  as  to  be  himself  known  by  the 
title  they  give  him,  and  be  called  a  preacher — not  of  sin,  or  inability, 
or  Satanic  agency,  or  of  Hell — but  distinctively,  a  preacher  of  the  Gospel. 
Not  that  these  severe  truths  are  not  to  be  emphasized,  but  that  they 
are  not  to  come  to  the  front  and  usurp  dominion  among  the  themes 
of  the  pulpit.  The  first  place  is  to  be  given  to  Christ  and  Kim 
crucified.  When  this  is  done  the  pulpit  will  accomplish  all  within 
its  power  to  keep  impenitent  minds  from  yielding  to  a  tendency  so 
to  exaggerate  the  severe  doctrines  as  to  keep  out  of  view  the  attract¬ 
ive  and  saving  ones.  There  are  difficulties  in  the  way  of  sal¬ 
vation,  and  they  are  connected  mainly  with  the  harsher  aspects 
of  Biblical  truth.  There  is  a  strange  tendency  in  unbelieving 
minds  to  say  that  the  first  four  sermons  to  which  I  listened  consti- 


*  This  division,  and  some  other  parts  of  the  discourse,  were  omitted  in  the  delivery. 


25 


tute  the  staple  of  evangelical  preaching.  If,  in  listening  to  the  fifth 
sermon,  they  do  not  accept  it,  then  they  require  the  ministration  of 
death,  set  forth  in  the  first  four,  to  take  permanent  possession  of  the 
sanctuary.  Thus  what  ought  to  be  to  them,  by  accepting  another 
ministration,  the  very  gate  to  Heaven,  becomes  practically,  in  their 
experience,  the  very  gate  to  Hell.  Their  every  thought  of  the  sanc¬ 
tuary  and  of  the  service  in  it,  and  of  Christian  believers,  is  a 
thought  of  severe  and  gloomy  truths.  The  result  is,  that  persons  of 
this  class  adopt  one  of  several  courses.  Perhaps  they  abandon  the 
sanctuary.  Why  should  they  reappear  in  it  Sabbath  after  Sabbath 
to  hear  truths  which  they  repel  as  cruel,  because  they  refuse  to 
accept  truths  that  are  sweet  and  winning?  Who  wants  to  be  kept 
always  in  misery?  On  the  other  hand,  perhaps  they  continue  their 
attendance,  but  settle  down  into  a  state  of  sceptical  indifference  as 
to  the  truths  presented.  There  is  a  comeliness  in  the  service  that 
appeals  to  their  cultured  taste,  an  intellectual  elevation  that  satisfies 
the  mind,  a  sympathy  with  good  people  that  reacts  favorably  upon 
their  own  morals,  and  they  continue  to  attend.  Yet  another  class, 
possessed  of  a  controversial  spirit,  will  go  to  church  to  hear  truth 
proclaimed  in  order  to  repel  it  because  of  the  suspected  illogical 
processes  used  in  its  defence.  In  sympathy  with  these  classes,  there 
may  arise  a  goodly  number  of  persons  who,  abandoning  the  sanc¬ 
tuary,  where  they  say  a  pagan  theology  is  taught,  unite  with  them 
and  form  a  society  of  their  own,  in  whose  house  of  worship  the 
liarsher  doctrines  are  studiously  excluded,  while  they  are  the  only 
ones  that  can  be  logically  taught  therein. 

Now  the  workman  in  the  pulpit  who  needeth  not  to  be  ashamed, 
who  rightly  divides  the  Word,  and  is  wdse  to  win  souls,  will  take 
note  of  this  tendency  of  the  human  heart  to  misinterpret  and  pervert 
the  more  unwelcome  doctrines  of  the  Bible,  and  so  present  the  same 
in  connection  with  the  warm  and  genial  truths  of  the  Gospel,  as  to 
enable  the  people  to  see  that,  having  accepted  the  latter,  they  have 
nothing  to  fear  from  the  former. 

IV.  We  see  the  exceeding  injustice  of  the  charge,  often  hinted, 
and  sometimes  directly  brought  against  the  evangelical  pulpit,  that  it 


2Q 


preaches  a  system  of  doctrine  essentially  inhumane,  if  not  replete 
with  the  spirit  of  pagan  cruelty.  Nothing  can  be  further  from  the 
fact.  The  Christian  pulpit  teaches  this,  “He  that  hath  the  Son  hath 
life,  and  he  that  hath  not  the  Son,  hath  not  life,  but  the  wrath  of  God 
abideth  on  him,”  and  this  is  good  doctrine.  It  teaches  that  it  is 
needless  for  men  to  be  lost — that  they  have  no  right  not  to  be  saved 
— and  this  is  not  pagan  barbarity.  It  teaches  that  God  would  have 
all  men  to  be  saved;  that  He  is  not  willing  that  any  should  perish; 
that  the  exclamation  of  His  heart  is,  How  can  I  give  thee  up  ?  and 
there  is  no  cruelty  in  such  expressions  of  God’s  love.  Is  the  mother 
cruel  in  warning  her  child  from  the  verge  of  a  cataract  ?  Neither  is 
God,  when,  in  the  proclamation  of  severe  truths  in  the*  pulpit.  He 
would  stay  His  children  from  dashing  themselves  in  pieces  upon  the 
thick  bosses  of  His  bucklers.  God  grant  that  we  may  all  so  receive  the 
whole  counsel  of  God — truths  of  His  Word  of  either  sort — that  we 
shall  be  able  to  exclaim  with  the  Psalmist,  “Great  peace  have  they 
that  keep  Thy  law,  and  nothing  shall  offend  them.” 

Christian  friends,  the  occasion  which  convenes  us  to-day  takes 
to  itself  an  interest  with  which  we  have  been  made  familiar.  The 
close  of  another  college  year;  the  commencement  of  a  new  year;  the 
departure  from  among  us  of  a  body  of  young  men  who  for  four  years 
have  been  with  us;  the  advance  of  classes  to  higher  grades,  and  the 
incoming  of  a  new  class,  are  events  that  we  recognize  with  an  ever 
fresh  interest.  If  it  is  sometimes  charged  against  our  college  that 
she  is  not  richly  endowed — that  she  lacks  in  equipment — it  may  yet 
be  affirmed  in  her  favor,  that  she  is  fortunately  intrenched  in  the 
bosom  of  a  community  who  account  her  interests  their  own,  and 
who  are  studious  of  her  welfare.  Far  hence  be  the  day  when  any¬ 
thing  shall  ever  occur  to  create  the  slightest  alienation  and  severance 
between  relations  that  have  been  so  happily  allied,  and  for  so  many 
years. 

But  the  peculiar  interest  of  this  occasion  appertains  to  a  portion 
of  our  number  who  have  been  wont  to  worship  with  us  here  and  in 
other  sanctuaries  of  the  village,  and  who  are  soon  to  go  forth  to 


27 


be  with  us  no  more,  save  as  we  shall  greet  them  hereafter  as 
alumni  as  they  return  on  commencement  and  other  occasions. 

Speaking  on  behalf  of  the  college,  let  me  extend  to  you,  gentlemen 
of  the  graduating  class,  those  forms  of  congratulation  which  are  due 
to  those  who  have  prosecuted  successfully  their  college  course  to  its 
close.  I  need  not  remind  you,  gentlemen,  of  the  significance  of  this 
event  in  your  lives.  A  young  man  is  always  an  object  of  interest. 
Large  capabilities  are  lodged  within  him.  Depths  of  dishonor  are  to 
be  escaped;  heights  of  glory  to  be  attained.  But  pre-eminently  true 
is  this  of  a  young  man  who  has  enjoyed  the  advantages  of  a  col¬ 
legiate  and  Christian  education.  We  impose  on  him  the  obligations 
of  a  noble  career  and  great  usefulness.  His  training  and  culture;  his 
accumulated  knowledge;  his  growth  towards  a  maturer  and  riper 
manhood,  dispose  us  to  lay  on  him  the  heavier  burdens  of  responsi¬ 
bility,  and  require  from  him  more  ample  returns.  We  are  happy  to 
express  the  confidence  that  this  will  be  the  service  which  you  will 
render.  Go  forth  from  us  fortified  by  Christian  principles,  under  the 
inspirations  of  a  resolute  purpose  to  do  good  and  to  inherit  whatever 
reward  such  a  purpose  will  bring;  hate  sin  and  rebuke  it;  accept  the 
truths  of  the  Christian  faith  and  practice  her  virtues  ;  and  to  each 
of  you  I  add 

“  Be  just  and  fear  not. 

Let  all  the  ends  thou  aim’st  at  be  thy  country’s, 

Thy  God’s,  and  truth’s.” 

“  To  thine  own  self  be  true. 

And  it  must  follow  as  night  the  day, 

Thou  canst  not  then  be  false  to  any  man.” 


/ 


CHRIST, 

THE  UNITY  OE  THE  RACE. 


SERMON 

Delivered  June  30,  1878. 


“  Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest.” — 

Matt.  xi.  28. 

I.  You  have  all  observed  in  the  study  of  history  a  tendeney  in 
human  minds  to  yield  to  the  attraction  of  certain  centres  of  thought — to 
congregate  and  cluster  upon  certain  leading  or  representative  ideas. 
This  teudency  is  foreshadowed  in  the  endless  unities  of  material 
nature.  Particles  of  matter  cohere  by  the  law  of  chemical  affinity; 
the  heavenly  bodies  are  held  to  their  respective  centres  by  gravita¬ 
tion  ;  atoms  adjust  themselves  in  the  plant  or  tree  by  an  architect¬ 
ural  instinct  in  the  law  of  its  life  ;  tlie  material  that  enters  into  the 
animal  organization  obeys  the  same  law  of  vivific  growth.  Rising 
higher,  we  see  insects  living  in  communities  and  moving  in  swarms  ; 
fishes  in  shoals,  birds  in  flocks  and  cattle  in  herds.  But  this 
law  which  obtains  in  all  the  departments  of  lower  nature,  animate 
and  inanimate,  enforcing  organization  and  social  harmony,  reap¬ 
pears  in  a  higher  form  and  equally  imperative  in  the  realm  of 
humanity,  requiring  men  to  live  in  society.  Every  plan  of  isolation 
here  is  abortive  ;  confronts  a  decree  of  God  and  a  law  of  nature. 
Our  solar  system  could  as  easily  -  disband,  or  the  coherence  of  the 
dew-drop  or  of  the  crystal  cease,  as  human  souls  could  abide  apart 
from  one  another  in  social  independence.  But  mankind  have  not 
only  cohered  at  these  centres,  they  have  moved  together  from  place 
to  place,  retaining  their  unity.  As  honey  bees  move  in  swarms  and 
pigeons  in  flocks,  so  men  have  moved  in  masses.  Such  was  the 


32 


migration  of  the  Israelites  from  the  house  of  bondage,  the  successive 
settlements  along  the  Mediterranean  and  in  Southern  Europe,  after¬ 
wards  in  the  British  Isles,  and,  in  modern  times,  in  our  Western 
Hemisphere.  By  what  potent  and  mysterious  spring  of  action  these 
migratory  movements  have  been  caused,  it  matters  not.  The  fact  of 
a  common  impulse  in  these  earth-slides  and  avalanches  of  migration, 
without  disturbing  the  old  unities,  is  all  that  concerns  us  here.  But 
this  harmonious  movement  has  not  been  wholly  geographical.  There 
have  been  social  and  moral  elevations  and  lapses,  where  whole  nations 
have  been  raised  above  themselves  or  have  fallen  to  a  lower  level  ; 
but  these  advances  or  retrogressions  have  all  taken  place  in  harmony 
with  law  enforcing  a  general  order.  The  world  of  mankind  has  beeli 
moving  evermore,  sometimes  with  slow  and  laggard  pace,  often  with 
the  force  of  a  storm-driven  sea,  but  always,  though  separated  into 
clans  and  tribes  and  nations,  in  obedience  to  the  law  of  unity  that 
has  kept  these  peoples  together  as  respects  place  or  grade  of  civiliza¬ 
tion. 

But  notice,  that  while  the  race  has  been  characterized  by  this 
restless  and  feverish  mobility,  and  has  fallen  into  different  and 
separate  nationalities,  bounded  often  and  shut  in  by  sea  and  mount¬ 
ain  range,  human  minds  meanwhile  have  congregated  and  fastened 
upon  ideas  at  the  great  centres  of  historic  thought  which  have  been 
largely  independent  of  time  and  place.  These  centres  have  been 
'denominated  schools — schools  in  philosophy,  in  ethics,  in  theology; 
schools  in  politics,  in  jurisprudence  and  administration  ;  in  litera¬ 
ture,  science,  art  and  criticism.  By  the  word  schools,  we  mean 
“  ways  in  which  ideas  pre-eminently  manifest  themselves  as  living 
powers  in  the  practical  life  of  mankind.”  They  are  the  great  leading 
forms  in  which  human  energy  has  been  developing  and  expanding  its 
forces  along  the  lines  of  time. 

But  human  minds  have  concentred  often  at  points  which  can 
hardly  be  dignified  by  the  word  school,  a  word  which,  in  its  common 
acceptation,  carries  in  it  a  certain  claim  to  respectability.  And  yet 
a  little  careful  inspection  will  show  in  these  more  remote  and  subor¬ 
dinate  and  less  worthy  centres  of  thought,  points  of  union  between 


33 


themselves  and  the  more  authoritative  and  dominant  ones  to  which 
reference  has  been  made.  As  the  earth’s  surface  presents  to  us  vast 
mountain  ranges  which,  in  their  lateral  expansion,  embrace  in 
organic  unity  with  themselves  the  hills  on  either  side,  so  humanity, 
sweeping  down  the  ages  and  expanding  over  the  earth,  presents  to 
us  equivalent  ranges  of  thought  which  assert  a  vital  connection  with 
all  subordinate  and  remoter  elevations  here  and  there  in  the  valleys 
on  either  hand. 

This  figure  suggests  another  resemblance.  As  these  mountain 
ranges  had  not  a  simultaneous  origin,  but  came  successively  into 
being  at  different  points  in  time  as  subterranean  and  Titanic  forces 
decreed,  and  thus  stand  as  “  monumental  piles  which  wizard  Time 
hath  raised  to  count  his  ages  by  ;  ”  so  the  towering  ranges  and 
schools  of  human  thought,  that  have  been  working  and  forecasting 
the  destiny  of  the  race,  have  had  a  prolonged  and  laborious  genesis, 
springing  into  dominant  authority  in  successive  eras,  according  as 
human  minds  have  been  stimulated  and  energized  by  fresh  discove¬ 
ries  of  truth,  by  bolder  theories  and  more  powerful  motives. 

But  consider  that  these  centres  of  thought,  whether  sovereign  in 
their  authority  or  of  a  less  influential  type,  whether  they  had  their 
origin  in  the  flickering  dawn  of  a  gray  antiquity,  or  are  a  recent  out¬ 
burst,  all  establish  and  illustrate  the  fact  that  human  minds  are  so 
constituted  that  they  must  live  in  intelligent  and  sympathetic  union 
one  with  another.  Call  these  points  of  union  by  what  term  you 
please — centres  of  thought,  or  schools  ;  conceive  of  human  minds  as 
convoked  and  crystallizing  upon  an  idea,  upon  a  principle — I  care 
not.  All  I  insist  upon  is  the  fact,  taught  by  all  history,  that  man¬ 
kind  are  put  under  the  necessity  of  living  in  sympathetic  and  social 
communion.  The  entire  expanse  of  human  history  is  dotted  all  over 
with  these  centres  of  clustered  souls. 

II.  With  this  phenomenon  of  history  before  us,  I  will  ask  you  to 
consider  in  the  second  place,  that  human  minds,  according  as  they  con¬ 
verge  toward  and  are  held  to  these  centres,  have  never  been  able  to  rise 
above  the  intellectual  and  moral  level  of  the  ideas  or  principles  that 
created  them.  As  in  crystallizable  material  there  is  a  pervasive 

3 


34 


formative  force  determining  every  particle  in  the  solution  inevitably 
to  some  centre  and  holding  it  there  by  a  bond  which  it  cannot 
break,  so  there  is  a  necessity  laid  upon  the  minds  of  men  which 
determines  them  to  centres,  where  they  are  held  by  a  power  as 
authoritative  as  the  necessity  that  brought  them  together  was 
absolute.  Once  at  that  centre  by  voluntary  social  affinit}^,  and 
voluntarily  abiding  in  it,  there  is  no  possibility  of  the  individual 
mind’s  breaking  away  from  or  rising  above  its  general  intellectual 
and  moral  tone.  Union  here  is  dominion.  This  is  not  saying  that 
minds  are  under  the  necessity  of  being  at  given  centres,  but  that 
being  at  these  centres,  they  are  of  necessity  so  affiliated  with  their 
formative  spirit  as  to  be  under  their  control  and  plastic  authority. 
The  apostle  would  apply  his  rule  here  :  To  what  centre  ye  yield 
yourselves  servants  to  obey,  its  servants  ye  are  to  whom  ye  obey. 

I  would  not,  however,  be  understood  to  mean  that  all  minds  attached 
to  schools  have  been  absorbed  in  them  and  held  in  an  invincible 
bondage  ;  but  that  in  proportion  to  their  absorption  in  and  the 
strength  of  their  adherence  to  them  they  have  been  so  held  and 
bound.  It  must  be  agreed  that  the  world  has  been  favored  all  along 
the  ages  with  men  whose  minds,  independent  and  original,  affluent 
of  thought,  and  bold  in  speculation,  have  accepted  no  existing 
schools  without  essential  modifications.  They  have  broken  away 
from  the  old  moorings,  adventured  into  new  fields  of  discovery,  and 
created  new  centres'.  “  To  sentence  a  man  of  true  genius,”  says  an 
acute  thinker,  “to  the  drudgery  of  a  school,  is  to  put  a  race  horse 
in  a  mill.” 

But  the  fact  of  the  existence  of  such  men,  so  far  from  militating 
against  my  position,  only  confirms  it,  since  these  men  have  so  re¬ 
organized  old  ideas  and  advanced  new  ones,  and  compounded  them, 
old  and  new,  into  new  products,  that  they  have  created  centres  in 
which  multitudes  have  been  involved  and  put  under  dominion  accord¬ 
ing  to  the  general  law  ^hich  I  have  affirmed.  That  these  centres  of 
thought,  or  schools,  or  intellectual  and  moral  nuclei — call  them  by 
what  term  you  please — have  asserted  this  authority,  is  easily  illus¬ 
trated  by  an  appeal  to  history. 


35 


In  the  civil  life  of  the  world  there  has  been  a  ceaseless  fermenta¬ 
tion,  and  nations  have  gradually  settled  into  the  compactness  of 
political  schools.  Sometimes  they  have  accepted  the  doctrine  of  a 
pure  monarchy  ;  sometimes  they  have  centred  upon  the  divine  right 
of  kings;  sometimes  the  democratic  idea  has  been  the  organizing  and 
constructive  principle;  sometimes,  in  the  union  of  church  and  state, 
a  religious  creed  has  been  the  cohering  force  and  bond  of  empire; 
sometimes  the  person  of  a  military  conqueror  or  chieftain  has  been 
the  national  core;  but  notice  that  whatever  that  rallying  nucleus  has 
been,  this  or  that,  the  nation  that  has  accepted  it,  and  according  to 
the  measure  of  that  acceptance,  has  never  been  able  to  rise  above  the 
level  of  its  political  and  moral  life.  The  nation  has  found  its  anchor¬ 
age  in  its  constructive  idea  and  organizing  centre. 

The  same  law  appears  with  equal  prominence  in  the  world  of 
philosophical  inquiry  and  speculation.  The  mere  mention  of  certain 
names,  such  as  Plato,  Spinoza,  Bacon,  Kant,  Locke,  Coleridge,  and 
Edwards,  suggests  philosophical  schools  to  which  dominion  has  been 
accorded.  But  consider  that  minds  that  have  accepted  the  pure  ideas 
of  Plato,  the  pantheistic  speculations  of  Spinoza,  the  inductive  philos¬ 
ophy  of  Bacon,  the  sensuous  philosophy  of  Locke  or  the  spiritual 
philosophy  of  Coleridge,  or  that  have  yielded  to  the  authority  of  these 
kingly  spirits  in  their  individual  speculative  systems,  are  minds  that 
have  been  held  by  these  masters  in  philosophy  as  by  bands  of  steel, 
and,  according  to  the  strength  of  this  mastery,  they  have  never  been 
able  to  vary  from  or  rise  above  the  level  of  the  intellectual  and  moral 
life  of  the  schools  which  these  philosophers  founded.  These  centres 
of  thought  have  exerted  influences  over  human  souls  powerful  as 
gravitation  among  the  planets.  They  have  warped  through  them; 
and  embraced  them  and  ordained  their  careers,  as  by  the  force  of 
destiny. 

But  as  religion  has  been  conceived  to  be  of  higher  moment  than 
politics  or  philosophy,  so  it  is  in  the  province  of  theological  inquiry 
and  speculation  that  we  behold  the  most  marked  and  characteristic 
exhibition  of  the  power  of  this  principle.  Human  minds  have  never 
elsewhere  congregated  in  such  numbers  or  with  such  spontaneity  or 


36 


celerity,  nor  have  they  elsewhere  crystallized  with  such  compactness, 
as  at  the  great  centres  of  theological  thought.  Minds  that  have  found 
their  religious  union  in  the  teachings  of  Confucius,  or  in  the  doctrines 
of  the  Vedas,  or  in  the  instructions  of  the  Koran,  or  in  the  Christian 
Scriptures,  have  been  held  at  these  points  by  motives  derived  from 
conscience  and  the  world  to  come,  and  hence  their  unparalleled 
strength.  But  confining  our  eye  to  the  activity  of  the  human  mind 
within  the  bounds  of  Christendom,  we  find  a  large  number  of  power¬ 
ful  theological  schools  which  have  passed  into  history,  carrying,  like 
the  philosophical  ones,  at  their  germinant  centres,  the  names  of  their 
illustrious  founders.  And  observe  that  minds  in  the  Christian  world 
which  have  united  upon  Augustinianism,  upon  Arminianism,  upon 
Calvinism,  or  upon  Edwardeanism,  in  short,  upon  this  or  that 
ecclesiastical  polity,  or  theological  creed,  whether  it  be  the  dogma  of 
Infallibility  in  the  creed  of  the  Catholic  church,  or  the  tenets  of  the 
Latter  Day  Saints — I  repeat,  minds  that  have  congregated  and  crys¬ 
tallized  at  the  great  theological  and  ecclesiastical  centres  of  the 
Christian  world,  have  been  bound  into  these  centres  like  a  gnarl  in 
an  oak,  and  held  there  by  bonds  as  invincible  as  their  loyalty  and 
attachment  have  been  unreserved  and  spontaneous.  The  Calvinist, 
so  far  as  he  is  distinctively  a  Calvinist,  has  never  been  able  to  rise 
above  his  Calvinism,  the  Arminian  above  his  Arminianism,  the  Mo¬ 
hammedan  above  his  Mohammedanism,  the  Roman  Catholic  above 
his  Catholicism,  the  Mormon  above  his  Mormonism,  the  Spiritist 
above  his  Spiritism,  and  so  on  through  all  the  schools  and  sects 
and  parties  into  which  Christendom  has  been  divided. 

With  these  illustrations  before  us,  I  am  prepared  to  reaffirm  the 
position  that  human  minds,  according  as  they  have  converged  to¬ 
ward  and  have  been  held  to  these  great  centres,  whether  in  the 
political,  in  the  philosophical,  or  in  the  theological  world,  or  in  any 
other  world  of  thought  that  can  be  named,  have  never  been  able  to 
rise  above  the  level  of  the  ideas  and  principles  which  are  there  enter¬ 
tained.  God  has  so  created  the  souls  of  men,  finite  and  dependent 
as  to  put  them  under  the  necessity  of  having  centres,  and  each  soul 
its  supreme  centre.  The  necessity  here  is  the  necessity  of  honey 


37 


bees  when  they  swarm  to  have  a  point  distinct  from  themselves, 
where  they  gather  in  a  clustered  mass  of  sonorous  life. 

III.  We  take  an  important  step  in  advance,  as  we  pass,  to  con¬ 
sider,  thirdly,  that  human  minds,  clustered  at  these  great  or  these  minor 
centres,  have  been  satisfied  and  at  rest  only  according  as  these  centres 
have  been  replete  with  truth,  and  they  have  been  unsatisfied  and  tumid- 
tuous  in  proportion  as  they  have  not  been.  It  needs  to  be  remembered 
that  the  human  spirit  is  so  created  in  the  image  of  God’s  intellectual 
and  moral  being,  that  whatever  is  false  and  spurious  is  utterly  alien 
from,  and  inimical  to  its  nature.  Hence,  whenever  minds  have  con¬ 
gregated  in  unions  wanting  in  truth,  they  have  been  unsatisfied,  and 
restive  and  tumultuous  ;  as  they  have  found  the  place  of  their 
supposed  rest  to  be  an  admixture  of  truth  and  error,  error  predomi¬ 
nating,  the  bond  of  union  has  given  way  and  disintegration  has  set 
in  ;  as  they  have  found  it  wholly  false  and  deceptive,  minds  have 
revolted  in  prompt  and  angry  disdain.  Instead  of  gradual  severance 
and  separation,  there  has  been,  in  the  issue,  explosion.  As  minds  in 
their  associations,  in  the  varied  forms  we  have  considered,  have  been 
acting  in  harmony  with  that  universal  law  in  material  nature  known 
as  attraction ;  so  when  they  have  committed  themselves  to  centres 
that  have  been  inadequate  and  spurious,  they  have  acted  in  harmony 
with  that  other  law  of  repulsion  equally  powerful  in  nature.  Hence, 
human  history  is  mainly  taken  up  with  giving  accounts  of  the  disso¬ 
lutions  of  old  centres  and  the  formation  of  new  ones  in  the  political 
philosophical  and  religious  world.  As  systems  of  government,  and 
of  philosophy,  and  of  theology  have  been  put  to  the  test,  tried  by 
the  standard  of  truth,  and  have  been  found  wanting,  they  have  been 
required  to  dissolve  and  give  place  to  systems  more  in  harmony  with 
eternal  verity. 

Appeal  to  history  might  here  be  made,  as  before,  in  illustration  of 
this  position.  The  powers  of  the  earth,  in  every  department  of 
human  thought  and  inquiry,  have  been  shaken  from  the  first,  as 
though  there  were  a  Governor  among  the  nations,  overturning  and 
overturning,  in  the  interests  of  Him  whose  right  it  is  to  reign. 
According  as  there  has  been  enough  of  truth  at  the  centres  of  the 


38 


great  scliools  in  government,  in  philosophy,  and  in  religion,  to 
continue  them  in  being  and  advance  them  in  excellence,  they  have 
withstood  the  shocks  of  time  and  still  exist.  Yet,  as  matter  of  fact, 
they  have  not  remained  undisturbed  and  tranquil.  There  have  been 
subterranean  rumblings  and  fermentation  ;  here  and  there,  now  and 
then,  heavy  revolts,  and  removals  to  other  centres.  The  monarchical 
idea,  in  church  or  state,  has  never  been  a  cohesive  force  of  sufficient 
strength  to  hold  its  votaries  steadily  to  it.  They  have  trembled  like 
iron  filings  on  an  exhausted  magnet. 

The  multitudes  have  been  kept  in  place  often,  not  by  power 
within,  attracting,  but  by  the  constraints  and  compressure  of 
outward  appliances — the  driving  of  hoops.  When,  under  the  yoke 
of  tyrannical  misrule,  they  have  broken  away  from  bondage  thus 
created  and  maintained,  and  attached  themselves  to  centres  in 
which  the  democratic  idea  has  been  the  organizing  force,  whether  in 
church  or  state,  there  has  been,  to  a  great  extent  still,  fermentation 
and  restlessness.  At  other  centres,  less  respectable  than  these, 
organization  has  been  followed  by  gradual  disintegration  ;  in  some 
cases  by  instant  disruption.  As  an  instance  of  the  former,  take  the 
wild  adventure  of  all  Europe  in  the  crusades.  Here,  for  the  first 
time,  we  see  Europe  united  in  a  single  enterprise,  and,  for  more  than 
two  centuries,  intent  upon  one  object.  But  what  became,  at  length, 
of  this  unity?  It  dissolved  into  thin  air,  and  is  known  only  by  the 
student  of  history  as  one  of  the  exhibitions  of  human  folly.  As 
instances  of  the  dissolution  of  centres  by  explosion,  take  any  form 
of  government  in  the  history  of  the  world  up  to  date,  that  has  so 
carried  its  severity  beyond  the  point  of  bearing  as  to  issue  in  revo¬ 
lution,  like  the  French  government  under  Louis  XVI.,  or  the  English 
government  under  Charles  I.  ;  or,  take  some  of  the  spurious 
systems  of  reform,  like  the  Socialistic  adventure  at  New  Harmony, 
Ind.,  under  Kobert  Owen,  which  crumbled  into  offensive  decay  as 
rapidly  as  it  came  into  being  ;  or  the  Mormon  abomination  in  Utah, 
wdiere  explosive  material  has  been  accumulating  for  a  day  of 
vengeance  that  hastens  apace  ;  or  take  any  of  the  great  financial 
monopolies,  from  the  lofty  “Credit  Mobilier”  down  to  the  ring 


39 


swindles  of  Tammany  fame.  At  all  these  tyrannical  centres  there 
have  been  revolutionary  explosions  ;  and  they  have  been  the  more 
appalling  and  eviscerating,  according  as  truth  has  been  wanting  and 
tyranny  cruel. 

Recall  the  steps  we  have  taken  : 

Human  minds  must  have  their  centres  ; 

They  can  never  rise  above  the  level  of  these  centres  ; 

They  have  never  been  content  and  at  rest  at  centres  except  as 
the  same  have  been  true  and  sufficient ; 

And  since,  in  the  main,  they  have  not  contained  truth  unmixed 
with  error,  and  have  often  been  positively  false,  therefore  human 
minds  in  general  have  been  restive  and  billowy,  volcanic  and  explo¬ 
sive. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  show  thus  in  general  that  the  organic  sequences 
of  history  have  been  those  of  decay  and  death.  Deterioration  has 
been  the  prevailing  fact  in  language,  in  literature,  in  art,  science, 
religion  and  civilization,  except  as  supernatural  influences  have  inter¬ 
posed  to  arrest  the  decline.  No  student  of  history  will  charge  Professor 
Shedd  with  exaggeration  when  he  says  :  “The  slow  and  sure  decay 
of  national  vigor  and  return  to  barbarism,  the  unvarying  decline  from 
public  virtue  to  public  voluptuousness  ;  in  short,  the  entire  history 
of  man,  so  far  as  he  is  outside  of  supernatural  influences,  and 
unaffected  by  the  intervention  of  his  ^laker,  though  it  be  a  self-deter¬ 
mined  and  responsible  process,  is  yet  in  every  part  and  particle  a 
strict  evolution  of  man’s  evil  nature  impelling  him  on  to  the  bitter 
and  disastrous  issue.” 

The  original  progenitors  of  the  race  were  created  in  maturity. 
God  himself  was  their  immediate  friend  and  guide.  “  But  their 
descendants  are  born  infantile — helpless  as  the  dust,  slow  to  learn, 
impatient  of  thought  and  study,  refusing  to  profit  by  lessons  of 
experience,  and  forever  chasing  phantoms  of  the  imagination,  and 
breaking  over  the  restraints  of  government  and  law.  If  reason  might 
to  a  greater  extent  guide  the  people,  or  self-love  temper  and  moderate 
them  in  their  pursuits,  yet  passion  neutralizes  the  power  of  these  re¬ 
straints,  and  the  people  are  driven  headlong.  Ambition,  prejudice,  lust, 


40 


false  systems  of  education,  corrupting  associates,  the  venom  of  party- 
spirit,  and  the  heat  of  vain  and  hasty  engagements,”  every  where  come 
in  for  their  share  of  service  in  the  general  decline  and  wreck.  These 
have  been  attended  by  sceptical  unbelief,  scientific  assault,  bewilder¬ 
ing  sophistr}^  and  the  incongruities  of  history  and  philosophy.  Mean¬ 
while,  the  wearisomeness  of  business,  the  routine  of  official  service, 
the  uncertainty  of  events,  the  malice  of  enemies,  the  treachery  of 
friends,  the  fret  of  disappointment,  the  painfulness  of  disease  and  the 
shortness  of  life,  have  increased  the  elements  which  have  caused  these 
endless  tossings  and  surgings  of  earth’s  stormy  sea  of  human  life,  as 
it  has  been  sweeping  across  the  longitudes  and  surging  down  the 
ages.  New  centres  have  been  formed  and  dissolved.  Revolution  has 
succeeded  revolution,  states  and  empires  have  flourished,  reached 
their  limits  and  passed  away.  Magnificent  cities  are  transformed 
into  frightful  heaps,  and  owls  hoot  and  satyrs  dance  in  the  palaces  of 
kings.  These  facts  are  the  occasions  of  discouragement  to  many,  to 
some  of  despair  ;  while  the  multitudes  have  surrendered  to  the  winds 
of  fortune,  and  been  alternately  faint  or  frantic,  despondent  or  mad, 
ambitious  or  idle,  according  as  times  and  moods  have  decreed. 

Thus  has  come  to  pass  the  saying  that  is  written,  “The  wicked 
are  like  the  troubled  sea  when  it  cannot  rest,  whose  waters  cast  up 
mire  and  dirt.”  Humanity  has  been  kept  in  a  state  of  perpetual 
fermentation,  making  the  wildest  traverses  and  the  most  reckless 
plunges.  In  this  state  of  things  what  the  world  needed  was  a  divine 
intervention. 

“  Man,  with  all  his  posterity,  must  die ; 

Die  he,  or  justice  must,  unless  for  him 
Some  other,  able  and  as  willing,  pay 
The  rigid  satisfaction,  death  for  death,” 

By  its  wisdom  the  world  knew  not  God  and  never  could  know 
him.  Self-deliverance  was  out  of  the  question.  Restoration  must 
come,  if  at  all,  from  an  agency  that  is  above  nature,  and  that  can 
arrest  the  course  of  nature — that  can  do  more  than  expand  ;  that 
can  regenerate  and  place  upon  a  new  foundation. 

IV.  This  prepares  me  to  direct  3mur  attention  to  The  Centre 


41 


which  God  in  Chrislianily  has  furnished  for  mankind.  Amidst  king¬ 
doms  faltering  and  going  to  decay,  there  was  need  of  one  that 
could  not  be  moved  ;  amidst  centres  inadequate  and  exhaustible, 
there  was  required  one  that  could  meet  the  nature  and  the  exigency 
of  human  souls. 

There  must  needs  appear  in  the  midst  of  an  old  and  dying  world 
a  new  and  quickening  power — a  centre  of  life,  around  which  all  the 
energies  that  may  chance  to  have  survived  the  general  wreck,  and 
which  itself  may  awaken,  shall  gather  and  unite — not  a  philosophy, 
but  a  revelation  ;  not  a  creed,  but  a  Person.  “  1  looked,”  and  the 
object  of  survey  was  the  world  lying  in  wickedness,  eating  of  the 
fruit  of  its  own  ways  and  filled  with  its  own  devices — a  troubled  sea. 
“I  looked,  and  there  was  none  to  help,  and  I  wondered  that  there 
was  none  to  uphold  ;  therefore,  mine  own  arm  brought  salvation.”  In 
only  one  instance  is  God  represented  in  the  Scriptures  as  driven  to 
an  emergency.  For  once  he  is  engaged  in  a  search.  His  knowledge, 
love  and  power  were  put  under  contribution.  At  length  we  hear  the 
divine  eureka,  “I  have  found  a  ransom.”  In  fulness  of  time  an  infant 
hung  upon  the  bosom  of  a  Jewish  maid.  Conceived  by  the  Holy 
Ghost,  He  was  born  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  and  suffered*under  Pontius 
Pilate.  Entering  upon  His  work.  He  came  into  conflict  with  man’s 
arch-enemy  and  conquered  him.  He  first  bound  the  strong  man  of 
the  house,  and  then  entered  upon  the  work  of  spoiling  his  goods.  He 
remanded  demons  to  their  prison  home,  healed  diseases  and  raised 
the  dead.  The  forces  of  nature  obeyed  His  mandates.  He  declared 
Himself  to  be  the  incarnation  and  manifestation  of  the  Godhead  ;  and, 
in  the  divine  authority  of  His  teachings,  in  the  supernaturalness  of  His 
works,  and  in  His  fulfilment  of  the  prophecies.  He  established  the 
claim.  Through  types,  shadows,  symbols,  God  through  the  ages 
gave  intimation  of  an  approaching  redemptive  work.  In  Christ,  their 
antitype  and  fulfilment,  these  shadows  found  their  significance  and 
glory.  By  the  determinate  counsel  and  foreknowledge  of  God,  this 
Being  of  a  double  nature,  whose  name  was  Wonderful,  of  miracu¬ 
lous  power,  of  tenderest  sympathies,  of  largest  beneficence,  was 
taken  and  by  wicked  hands  slain,  voluntarily  submitting  to  indig- 


42 


iiity  and  suffering  —  the  just  for  the  unjust  —  a  ransom  for  sin. 
Crucified,  dead  and  buried,  He  could  not  be  holden  of  the  cords  of 
death,  but  was  declared  to  be  the  Son  of  God  with  power  by  His 
resurrection  from  the  dead.  When  God  thus  set  to  His  seal  that 
Christ  was,  as  He  declared  Himself  to  be,  the  Son  of  God,  all  nature 
united  to  signalize  the  event  ;  the  heavens  were  darkened,  the  earth 
was  convulsed,  the  veil  of  the  temple  was  rent  in  twain,  graves  were 
opened  and  the  dead  arose  and  appeared  unto  many — a  series  of 
wonders  which  carry  in  them  a  solemn,  miraculous  and  authoritative 
declaration  of  Almighty  God  that  He  who  died  on  the  cross  was  the 
world’s  Redeemer. 

This  now  is  the  Centre  which  God,  in  His  infinite  compassion,  fur¬ 
nished  for  mankind.  It  is  not  an  intangible,  cold  abstraction  of  the 
schools  ;  not  a  system  of  philosophy  ;  it  is  more  than  a  theological 
creed.  God’s  Centre  is  a  Person,  and  that  Person  is  both  His  Son 
and  the  Son  of  Man.  In  his  twofold  nature  He  represents  the  God¬ 
head  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  human  race,  in  its  normal  integrity, 
on  the  other.  He  embodied  the  wisdom  of  God  and  the  power  of 
God.  He  expressed  the  Divine  love,  compassion  and  sympathy.  In 
Him  was  life  knd  the  life  was  the  light  of  men.  No  man  had  seen 
God  at  any  time;  the  only  begotten  Son,  who  dwelleth  in  the  bosom 
of  the  Father,  He  declared  Him.  As  the  apple  tree  among  the  trees 
of  the  wood,  so  is  our  Beloved  among  the  sons  of  men.  So  wise  in 
speech  was  He,  so  tender  in  compassion,  so  amiable  in  character,  so 
large  in  beneficence,  so  replete  with  every  virtue  that  charms  us  into 
admiration  and  rapture,  that  we  look  upon  Him  as  the  very  incarna¬ 
tion  of  universal  loveliness.  In  Him  no  virtue  jostled  another  out  of 
place,  none  rose  into  extravagance,  none  pined  in  feeble  restriction. 
In  Him  the  Desire  of  all  nations  came.  He  met  the  longings  ex¬ 
pressed  in  the  unconscious  prophecies  of  heathenism.  To  Him  her 
pagan  altars,  inscribed  to  the  unknown  God,  pointed  with  singular 
directness.  As  altogether  lovely.  He  was  the  delight  of  the  sons  of 
men.  It  was  required  of  the  Centre  which  God  should  furnish  that 
it  should  be  their  attraction.  “And  I,  if  I  be  lifted  up” — signifying 
what  death  he  should  die — “  will  draw  all  men  unto  Me.”  Hence 


43 


the  force  of  representing  Him  under  the  figure  of  the  stone  of  infinite 
magnetic  attraction,  cut  out  of  the  mountains  without  hands;  a  tried 
stone,  elect,  precious,  chief-corner;  a  stone  which  is  destined,  in  its 
unspeakably  attractive  power,  so  to  draw  men  to  it  and  upon  it,  as 
to  fill,  in  due  time,  in  its  enlargement,  the  whole  world.  It  is  the  old 
rock  of  the  wilderness  that  followed  Israel,  and  which  quenched  their 
thirst,  which  rock  was  Christ.  It  is  the  rock  in  which  Israel  tri¬ 
umphed.  “  Their  rock  is  not  as  our  rock,  our  enemies  themselves 
being  judges,”  but  which  Israel  afterwards  repudiated  and  made  a 
stone  of  stumbling  and  a  rock  of  offence. 

Observe  that  this  stone  cut  from  the  mountains  is  a  limng  stone. 
The  attractive  Centre  which  God  has  established,  is  His  Eternal  Son, 
the  Prince  of  Life;  who,  having  life  in  Himself,  diffuses  and  sustains 
life  throughout  the  universe;  who,  as  Redeemer  and  Mediator  laid 
down  His  life;  and  having  power  to  lay  it  down,  took  it  again,  rising 
from  the  dead  death’s  conqueror,  to  die  no  more;  and  thus  becoming 
the  resurrection  and  the  life  to  all  who  accept  Him. 

Mark  the  assimilative  power  of  this  Centre.  “  To  whom,  coming  as 
unto  a  living  stone,  ye  also  as  livwg  stones  are  built  up  a  spiritual 
house.”  From  the  first  laying  of  this  stone  in  Zion,  out  of  the  very 
stones  of  the  desert,  God  has  been  raising  up  children  unto  Abra¬ 
ham;  for  they  that  are  of  faith  are  Abraham’s  seed  and  heirs  accord¬ 
ing  to  the  promise.  Imbedded  in  nature’s  quarry,  sunk  in  the  hole 
of  the  pit  or  scattered  on  the  heath,  these  stones  are  drawn  together 
upon  the  Divine  Magnet  by  influences  sweeter  than  the  Pleiades,  and 
bands  mightier  than  Orion’s.  As  stones  living,  instinct  with  the 
very  life  of  the  all-embracing  Centre,  and  polished  after  the  simili¬ 
tude  of  a  palace,  and  gleaming  with  inward  and  reflected  light,  they 
congregate  upon  the  foundation.  Obeying  the  architectural  instinct 
of  the  life  that  pulsates  therefrom,  they  take  their  appropriate  places 
in  the  structure,  and  are  builded  together,  a  living  temple  wherein 
God  dwells,  and  which  forever  resounds  His  praise.  Their  relation  to 
the  Chief  Corner  is  such  that  they  are  changed  as  by  the  Spirit  of 
the  Lord  into  the  same  image  from  glory  to  glory,  until  the  house  of 
God,  thus  created,  which  is  the  ecclesia  of  the  living  God,  throughout 


44 


its  entire  extent,  and  to  its  utmost  turret  and  pinnacle,  glows  and 
irradiates  with  the  beauty  of  the  Lord,  the  King  of  Glory. 

And  consider  that  this  Stone  laid  in  Zion  is  not  only  provided  as 
the  Centre  of  the  Church;  the  Centre  of  the  Church  is  the  Centre  for 
humanity,  and  the  only  Centre.  Tliis  is  as  it  should  be,  for  there  is 
nothing  exclusive  in  the  provisions  of  redemption.  Christ  died  for  all; 
the  Holy  Ghost  is  able  to  convert  all;  the  conditions  of  salvation  are 
practicable  to  all;  the  decrees  of  God  are  the  same  to  all  who  will 
accept  of  salvation,  and  no  man  has  a  right  not  to  be  saved.  Hence 
the  force  of  the  Divine  invitation  in  the  text:  “Come  unto  me;’’  “I 
have  been  lifted  up;”  “  Come  all  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy  laden,” 
ye  who  have  sought  in  vain  for  relief  and  satisfaction  at  other  centres 
— empty  cisterns  that  can  hold  no  water — “  Come  unto  me  and  I  will 
give  you” — what  elsewhere  ye  cannot  find — “I  will  give  you  res/.” 
“  Come,”  ye  poor  and  needy;  “Come,”  ye  desolate  ones;  “  Come,”  ye 
hardy  clans  that  shiver  and  freeze  amidst  the  ices  of  the  poles,  and  ye 
swarthy  hordes  that  repose  in  the  orange  groves  or  pant  on  the 
shrubless  sands  of  the  tropics;  “Come,”  ye  rich  men  and  nobles; 
“Come,”  ye  wise  men;  ye  masters  in  philosophy  and  science; 
“  Come,”  ye  arrogant  rejectors  of  the  facts  of  redeniption — facts 
as  good  as  any  facts,  supernaturally  authenticated,  and  having  an 
evidence  incapable  of  refutation  ;  “  Come,  ye,”  then,  all  men  and  all 
women  ;  young  men  and  maidens  and  youth,  and — little  children,  for¬ 
bid  them  not  to  come — and  I  will  gioe  you  rest.  Dig  no  longer  above 
the  mine  and  leave  the  vein  untried.  Ten  thousand  broken  shafts 
tell  where  ye  have  vainly  dug;  ten  thousand  broken  cisterns  tell  how 
your  thirst  has  been  vainly  mocked.” 

It  remains  now  that  we  put  this  Centre  to  the  tests  by  which  we 
have  tried  other  centres  and  found  them  wanting.  We  have  seen 
that  human  minds  never  rise  above  the  intellectual  and  moral  level 
of  the  centres  upon  which  they  congregate;  and  that  they  have  been 
in  bondage  whenever  this  level  has  been  so  low  as  to  leave  them  un¬ 
satisfied.  But  in  this  Centre  which  God  has  provided  for  mankind 
there  is  no  lack  of  elevation.  It  is  a  high  Centre  ;  and  all  who  are 
attracted  to  it  feel  the  inspiration  of  the  high  calling  of  God  in  Christ 
Jesus.  When,  in  the  unity  of  the  faith  and  of  the  knowledge  of  the 


45 


Son  of  God,  we  shall  all  come  unto  a  perfect  man,  we  shall  not  have 
surpassed  the  measure  of  the  stature  of  the  fulness  of  Clirist.  All 
who  come  to  this  Centre  will  be  satisfied  with  its  intellectual  and 
spiritual  elevation. 

Therefore,  it  is  the  Centre  which  can  never  be  superseded  in  the 
progress  of  the  race.  It  contains  all  that  man  needs  or  ever  can 
need.  Its  radius  sweeps  a  realm  of  infinite  extent,  and  gathers  in  all 
possible  good.  “  I  shall  be  satisfied  when  I  awake  with  thy  like¬ 
ness.”  Therefore,  there  is  no  peril  of  disintegration  or  of  explosion  at 
this  Centre.  “Behold,  I  lay  in  Zion  for  a  foundation  a  stone,  a  tried 
stone,  a  precious  corner,  a  sure  foundation;  he  that  believeih  shall  not 
make  haste.^’ 

Gentlemen  of  the  graduating  class,  the  theme  which  has  now  en¬ 
gaged  our  attention,  though  not  invested  with  the  charms  of  novelty, 
is  yet  accounted  by  you,  as  it  is  by  us  all,  one  of  the  highest  import¬ 
ance  and  of  inexhaustible  interest.  You  bear  me  witness  that  the 
method  of  treating  the  subject  in  hand  has  not  been  out  of  harmony 
with  the  spirit  and  style  of  your  entire  course  of  discipline  in  the  col¬ 
lege.  You  have  never  been  encouraged  to  rest  in  the  forms  of  knowl¬ 
edge,  but  incited  to  pass  beyond  the  letter  that  kills  to  the  spirit  of 
truth  that  imparts  life.  We  have  sought  to  lead  you  into  such  clear 
apprehension  of  fundamental  principles,  as  to  put  you  in  possession  of 
the  clue  to  all  knowledge.  We  have  encouraged  in  you  the  spirit  of 
inquiry;  to  take  nothing  as  true  that  did  not  commend  itself  to  you 
as  intrinsically  reasonable.  As  you  have  advanced  from  one  depart¬ 
ment  of  study  to  another,  we  have  asked  you  to  mark  the  interde¬ 
pendence  and  organic  unity  of  all  knowledge.  You  can  account  no 
truth  as  yours,  in  its  fulness  of  life  and  power,  save  as  you  see  its 
harmony  with  neighboring  truths.  I  am  not  confident  that  we  are 
justified  in  denominating  one  department  of  truth  natural  and 
another  moral.  It  is  difficult  to  conceive  how  a  scholar,  possessed  of 
a  genuinely  scientific  spirit,  can  be  sceptical  concerning  truths  that 
are  as  fundamentally  lodged,  and  as  consciously  evolved  in  the  intui¬ 
tions  of  the  soul  as  any  truths  brought  to  our  knowledge  through  the 
organs  of  sense.  What  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  says  of  the  Christian 
faith  may  be  affirmed  of  truth  itself :  “  It  is  a  grand  cathedral,  with 


46 


divinely  pictured  windows.  Standing  without  you  see  no  glory,  nor 
can  you  possibly  imagine  any;  standing  within,  every  ray  of  light 
reveals  a  harmony  of  unspeakable  splendors.’^  The  exceeding  privi¬ 
lege  is  accorded  to  the  scholar  to  stand  witliin  this  temple  of  truth 
and  to  have  this  vision.  To  you,  gentlemen,  standing  on  this  van¬ 
tage  ground,  and  marking  the  divine  harmony  of  all  truth,  I  can  com¬ 
mend  with  confidence  Him  whom  we  have  considered  in  this  dis¬ 
course  as  the  organizing  and  constructive  Centre  of  humanity.  The 
harmony  you  discover  in  all  truth  ought  to  prepare  you  to  accept 
Him  who  is  the  unity  of  all  men.  “To  know  God,  the  Maker,”  says 
Carlyle;  “to  know  the  divine  laws  and  inner  harmonies  of  the  uni¬ 
verse,  must  alwa3^s  be  the  highest  glory  of  a  man.”  May  this  glory 
be  yours  in  your  knowledge  of  Him  who  is  at  once  the  wonder  ol  the 
world  and  the  solution  of  its  mysteries. 

Gentlemen,  you  have  reached  an  interesting  point  in  your  lives. 
You  have  been  advancing  towards  it  together  for  the  past  foar  years 
in  the  sweet  intimacies  of  college  life.  The  ground  you  have  trav¬ 
ersed  together,  the  scenes  through  which  you  have  passed  in  all  the 
relations  and  struggles  of  these  years,  will  furnish  for  you  a  retro¬ 
spect  of  never  ending  delight,  notwithstanding  you  ma^*  discover 
particulars  wherein  you  might  have  done  better  than  you  have.  To 
one  event  alone,  in  the  history  of  your  class,  can  you  point  as  having 
cast  a  signal  gloom  upon  you.  And  that  deepens  as  you  approach 
the  hour  of  your  separation.  You  recall  to-day,  as  we  ali  do,  with 
sorrowing  hearts  the  absence  of  Leavenworth  from  your  ranks.  He 
is  not  with  you  to-day.  We  recall  his  manly  form;  his  calm  but 
vigorous  thought;  his  modest  but  determined  purpose;  his  Christian 
and  noble  character,  and  the  high  promise  he  gave  of  eminent  useful¬ 
ness  in  the  world.  But  he  is  not,  for  God  took  him.  Happy  the 
tempests  that  cast  their  wrecks  on  the  shores  of  Paradise.  God 
sanctify  to  us  our  remembrances  of  him,  and  the  heavy  grief  that 
weighs  upon  the  hearts  of  a  stricken  home.  But  you  cannot  pause 
long  to  weep  for  your  dead.  The  necessity  is  upon  you  to  move  for¬ 
ward  to  your  work.  Go  forth  in  the  strength  of  an  honest  purpose, 
armed  with  faith,  and  impelled  by  zeal  tempered  with  wisdom;  and 
may  the  God  of  peace  go  with  you. 


